


caffeinated

by thewordsofalullaby



Category: New Girl (TV 2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Humor, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:40:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 41,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27867025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewordsofalullaby/pseuds/thewordsofalullaby
Summary: It’s that new barista they hired. She just doesn’t stop talking. You ask for a coffee, and you get her life story in return.Nick tries to order a coffee, but walks away with a turtle doodled on his cup and a bunch offeelings.(AU; barista!Jess + writer!Nick; slow burn)
Relationships: Cece Parekh/Schmidt (New Girl), Jessica Day & Cece Parekh, Jessica Day & Nick Miller, Jessica Day/Nick Miller, Nick Miller & Schmidt (New Girl), Winston Bishop/Aly Nelson
Comments: 210
Kudos: 120





	1. cat photos and name tags

**PART 1; nick**

Nick Miller’s not a morning person; he never has been, never will be. His roommate, however, very much is, and he’s rudely woken up between seven and nine AM (also known as: too damn early) by the sound of someone loudly - and unapologetically - vacuuming… and he’s not talking about vacuuming the communal areas, because he’d never complain about that, but he’s talking about his roommate deciding it would be a great idea to start vacuuming his bedroom whilst he’s still asleep. (Or, more accurately, whilst he _was_ still asleep.)

“What the hell are you doing?!” Nick yells, reaching down and pulling the comforter up and over his head until he can’t see the sunlight or Schmidt’s stupid face. “I’m sleeping!”

“You seem perfectly awake to me, Nick,” Schmidt replies undeterred, continuing vacuuming, almost humming as he does it. “Besides, it’s not my fault. If you just cleaned up your room regularly like a normal person instead of living in this—this _biohazard_ , I wouldn’t need to do this!”

“I vacuumed last week!”

“Yes, _Nicholas_ , that was seven days ago! Seven!”

“That’s normal—wait, how often do you vacuum your room, Schmidt? Every day?”

Schmidt cuts the vacuum off, then waits patiently until Nick slowly lowers the comforter down, peering at him.

“Seriously? You actually vacuum your room every day?”

Schmidt lets out a sigh, pinches the bridge of his nose, then proceeds to promptly drag him out of his bed. It ends up with both of them wrestling each other on his carpet, and— _god_ , _ugh_ , Schmidt is a real clown sometimes.

“Okay, okay, get off me,” Nick moans out eventually, pushing Schmidt off and getting to his feet. “Hand me the vacuum.”

Schmidt grins widely, patting him on the shoulder as he hands it over. “You’ll thank me later, Nick,” he says, then looks like he’s almost going to go in for a hug, but Nick immediately stops him, fixing him with a glare (“Don’t even think about it, pal.”)

“You’ll thank me later when you’re not dead before the age of thirty!”

* * *

He vacuums, though yeah, he doesn’t do a great job at it because he’s _so damn tired_ (and also, he vacuumed last week so it’s still pretty clean by his standards). He makes sure to drag the task out for long enough that Schmidt will buy that he’s done it properly, then gingerly steps outside of his bedroom and towards the kitchen on a hunt for some caffeine. Usually, he’d happily go straight back to sleep, but he has the slight suspicion that Schmidt’s not going to let him do that today. The problem is, when he forcefully opens the cupboard over the kitchen counter, he sees almost immediately that there’s none of his (admittedly, shitty – but he prefers to spend money on other things, like, you know, burritos and snack bags of raisins) instant coffee anywhere in sight. He glances furtively towards the pack of beans that _is_ in the cupboard, probably hand-harvested on some random mountain in the middle of a deserted island, but it’s like Schmidt knows what he’s thinking or something because he almost jumps over the counter in his rush to stop him from laying a hand on the bag.

“Don’t you dare,” Schmidt warns, giving him a – not well-earned – slap across the cheek.

“Hey, buddy, what the hell is wrong with you this morning?!”

“You don’t deserve these beans, Nicholas; they're only for people who appreciate the finer things in life,” Schmidt continues, lunging over him to grab the bag and shove it under his shirt, promptly backing away from Nick and towards his room. (Not that, you know, there would be any possibility of Nick actually trying to go for the beans now after he's shoved them _under his shirt_ : just saying; no thank you.) “If you want coffee so badly, go and buy yourself a subpar one at the coffee shop down the road."

“You woke me up, Schmidt!” Nick yells back, raising his hands up in frustration. Why does he live with Schmidt again? “Come on, you owe me a coffee!”

Schmidt tilts his head, and for a blissful second, Nick thinks he’s going to be reasonable about this, but then he just rummages around in his pocket and throws a five dollar bill in his direction.

“Seriously, Schmidt? You’d rather give me _five_ dollars to buy myself a coffee than just make me one with the coffee you’ve already paid for?” Nick shouts incredulously, running an exasperated hand over his face, rubbing at his eyes. He’s exhausted, and this is—this is too much, too early. “Well, _jokes on you,_ pal, because a coffee’s only like, what, two dollars?”

Schmidt’s mouth falls open, features twisting into one of disgust.

“You buy two dollar coffee?” He asks, clearly horrified. “Nicholas, what is wrong with you?! Ugh, do whatever you want, but don’t even think about bringing two dollar coffee into this apartment. I’ll never be able to forget the smell and I can’t have it contaminating the loft aura!”

“Contaminating…the loft aura?” Nick echoes, voice rising again. “Think about what you’re saying right now. Think. About. What. You’re. Saying.”

“Just go and buy yourself a damn coffee, Nick!”

* * *

He does, eventually. He shrugs on an old, worn-out red hoodie, shoves Schmidt’s five dollar bill into his pocket, then grabs his laptop from his desk and heads out of the loft without another word. He’s up already, so he might as well get writing and be ‘productive’ or whatever – and, more importantly, get away from Schmidt before he’s caught up in some battle about something stupid again. A person can only take so much of Schmidt’s antics daily and he’s already well past his limit for today. Nick enters the first coffee shop he passes without too much drama, except when he’s inside, he notices that the queue is abnormally long (or, is it only abnormal to him because he’s never awake in the mornings when people tend to be buying coffee?) He grimaces, sliding into the back of the queue and sliding his hood up. This is really not what he wanted to be doing today.

He waits, five, maybe, ten minutes, but the queue doesn’t move one bit and now he’s not so sure that it's his daily routine that is to blame for this abnormality. It can’t really take this long to make a few coffees, right? Nick gingerly reaches out to tap the guy in front on the shoulder, bracing himself a little as he turns abruptly, a displeased expression on his face.

  
“Did you just tap me?”

“I, uh, yeah, sorry,” Nick says, shuffling slightly on the spot, “just, do you know what’s taking so long?”

The man lets out an exhale, deep sigh.

“It’s that new barista they hired,” he explains, visibly disgruntled, “she just doesn’t stop talking. You ask for a coffee, and you get her life story in return.”

There's a pause, then the woman two people in front of them whips her head around, fixing them both with a glare, pointing her carefully manicured fingers at them.

"She is by far the best person I know, so if I hear you say another bad word about her, I swear to God, I will hunt you down and you will regret it."

Okay, then. Shutting up right about... _now_.

Nick tries to peer around the bodies in front of him to try and catch a look at the counter, but there are too many people in the way and he can’t spot the girl that they're referring to; so, instead, he just…continues waiting. By the time he manages to get nearer to the front, he starts to see what kinda-intimidating-guy-in-front had meant. There’s a girl standing behind the counter, all bright-eyed and smiles as she asks every single customer in line how they’re doing and then proceeds to tell them about her week in excruciating detail, down to what lunches she’s been having.

There are several things that Nick knows almost immediately: one, he and barista girl are complete opposite personalities and even just being several feet away from her is making him grimace; two, he appreciates a good sandwich and all, but does she really need to tell everyone about every packed lunch she's had for the past week? _Come on;_ and three…okay, he’ll admit it, he’s a man and he has working eyes (well, kinda. He is technically legally blind, but let’s not—let’s not focus on that right now). She’s undeniably pretty, in a way that would make him look twice and skip a breath _if_ she wasn’t spouting all this random nonsense to everyone…but she is, so he’ll just file that thought away and never revisit it because, yeah, no thanks.

By the time he’s made it to the counter, he’s incredibly irritated and incredibly grumpy. He’s been in this queue for, what, twenty minutes? This is ridiculous!

“Hello! Welcome! What can I get you?”

He takes a breath.

“Um, really, what can I get you? I can read off the different coffees to you if you want? I actually made a song about them, though Aly – she’s my friend, well, now boss... friend-boss? – banned me from singing to customers because there was an _“incident"_ the other week, but if you don’t know what coffee you want, I could sing the song anyway—”

He stares.

“Is that a ‘yes’ to the singing?”

He shakes his head. _Hard_.

  
“Okay…then, um, what do you want? I kinda need to know, or we’re not going to get anywhere here,” the girl says, eyeing him up through her glasses, expression bemused.

“Americano, regular,” he eventually replies, gritting his teeth slightly. He supposes it’s a bit unfair for him to be taking his bad mood out on this girl when his issue probably lies with Schmidt and the fact that he’s awake so early, but a _song_? Seriously?

“Great choice,” the girl tells him, then raises a hand to salute him, and Nick fights down the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, he just grimaces in response, clenches his fists, except— “Hey, has anyone told you that you look like a turtle when you frown?”

He grimaces harder, now in slight horror, wide-eyed.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude,” the girl says hastily, then tilts her head at him and scrutinises his face.

A beat passes, and then she nods once, as if she’s just made up her mind about something, blue eyes glinting.

“I like it,” she tells him, with a smile, reaching out to pat him lightly on the cheek with one hand, “it’s kinda adorable.”

Nick blinks.

What.

Firstly, _adorable_ he is definitely not (even ‘kinda’), and two, did she just—pat him on the cheek? He’s not a goddamn child, and he doesn’t know much about customer service and stuff, but is she supposed to be invading customers’ private space like that? He doesn’t think so.

“It is not adorable,” he grits out, and dear god, he desperately needs something or someone to just kill him now. This is—his mind can’t take this, not right now. "And I do not look like a _turtle_."

The girl just chuckles, almost musically, shrugs her shoulders at him.

“Well, I think it is and I think you do,” she reiterates, grabbing an empty coffee cup from the counter. “What’s your name?”

He blinks, frowns a bit harder, until the space between his eyebrows kinda hurts.

“I need it for the cup,” she explains patiently, waving a marker pen at him, and _oh_ , yeah, he guesses that sounds about right.

“Uh, it’s Miller,” he says, sticking his hands into his pockets just to have something to do.

“Is that your first or last name?”

“Does that matter?”

“Not in the grand scheme of things, no, but I’m just trying to get to know you, you know?”

“Please don’t,” he replies quickly, shudders, then glances at the name tag on her shirt, “ _Jessica.”_

“It’s actually just Jess,” she corrects, though she’s grinning at him, wide enough that he can see her teeth, and even though she’s infuriating as hell and he really doesn’t have time for this, she, yeah, fine, she has a beautiful smile and it’s _distracting_.

“The tag says Jessica,” he retorts, sliding his hands back out of his pockets to cross his arms, attempting to stare her down.

She stares at him right back, unfaltering, blue eyes burning into his, before she just chuckles again, that weird, oddly soothing musical chuckle, and then turns around to – finally – start making his coffee. He lets out a slow breath that he didn't even know he was holding as he shifts down the counter slightly so he can pay. Nick hands over Schmidt’s five dollar bill without a word, raising his eyes upwards to thank the heavens when the guy behind the cash register just takes it and hands him his change without telling him he looks like a turtle (what does a turtle even look like?!), except, then, he’s getting a phone screen shoved in his face:

“Question: do you think Furguson looks cuter in this photo?” The guy asks, then swipes, “Or this one?”

Nick leans back, frowning once more. What is—what is happening right now? What is this place? Just, _what_?

“Furguson’s my cat,” the guy explains, as if that makes everything better, then shoves the phone at him again.

Nick rubs a hand over his face, lets out an audible groan, squinting at the screen. The first photo is of the guy and his cat relaxing at a spa, and the second photo is of the guy and the cat in matching cop costumes…and yeah, Nick would not describe the cat as ‘cute’ in either photo (or in any photo, if he’s honest).

“Which one? Come on, man, help a brother out. I need to know which one so that I can get it printed as a poster for my room.”

Nick rubs a hand over his face again. He can’t believe he’s even thinking this, but this might actually be worse than his experience with _Jessica_ over there.

“Please?”

The guy – _Winston_ , reads his name tag – is staring up at him, eyes wide and pleading, and are those eyes supposed to be making him want to pick a photo or something? Because, Nick’s not saying it’s working, because it’s _not_ , but he, uh, it does make him take a second look at the photos. Yeah, yeah, he’s weak; let’s skip over that.

“Second,” he eventually replies, then promptly moves further down the counter so that he can wait for his coffee in peace.

It takes another five minutes before a coffee is slid down the counter, possibly because he can already see _it’s Jess, not Jessica_ asking the next person in line some – probably - stupid questions about their lives, semi-bouncing on the spot as she does it, but mostly because—

“—Jess, why is there a turtle on this cup? What did I tell you about drawing things on these? All you have to do is get the customer’s name and write it down.”

He groans. Loudly.

“I did get his name, Aly,” Jess( _ica_ ) replies, turning away from her conversation, gesturing in his direction, and he immediately tugs his hood around himself a little tighter, wondering if the world will swallow him whole if he silently begs it to. _Please, please, please._

“His name’s Miller,” she continues, and then she has the audacity to turn and _wink_ at him as if they’ve got some shared secret, and he doesn’t know if that makes him more infuriated by everything or if he’s, uh, well, if he's weirdly, kinda turned on by it— _christ_ , what is he— yeah, so, he needs that coffee right this second, his mind is clearly still half-asleep. Sleeping Nick is not a trustworthy guy.

“Sorry about that, she’s still new,” the girl he guesses must be Aly says, handing him the coffee, shooting him an apologetic smile, then leans in over the counter to whisper at him. “I love the girl, but she’s, uh, she’s going through a bit of a rough patch as of late. Boyfriend cheated on her and she just lost her job.”

Oh.

Nick blinks, feeling more than a bit guilty at the revelation, glancing sideways at Jess(ica). He lets himself look, _really look_ , and he starts seeing things that he didn’t pick up before; starts seeing those cracks in the cheerful façade. She’s grinning at customers, yes, but her hands are shaking under the counter and she bites down on her bottom lip as soon as she faces the wall to make the next coffee as if she’s trying not to cry.

Something deep in his chest clenches and twists – which is a weird reaction because you know, he doesn’t actually know the girl – and it’s enough to make him tap the counter to get her attention, just once.

"Thanks for the turtle, Jessica,” he says once she glances over at him, even though he hasn’t actually looked at it yet.

He angles the cup in his hand so that he can examine her handiwork, unable to stop a wry smile from crossing his lips as he sees a little frowning cartoon turtle doodled on the side, staring back at him. (He hates to admit it, and he’d never admit it out loud, but this turtle is kinda—kinda _adorable_. Ugh.) When he raises his eyes up again, she’s beaming at him, eyes sparkling, and he’s oddly proud of himself for making her smile again. He can be a relatively good guy, most of the time.

“It’s really just Jess,” she reiterates.

“Yeah, well, that’s not what your name tag says, _Jessica_.”

He leaves then, takes a sip of his (well-earned) coffee, and heads towards the park to get started on the next chapter of the detective novel he’s been working on. It's funny, really, because he's been stuck on this chapter for ages, completely trapped in a prolonged writer's block, but suddenly the words are flowing and he's writing in a new character, a side-kick to Pepperwood of sorts, and he calls her Jessica.


	2. turtlefaces and smiles

He doesn’t replenish his stock of instant coffee, even though he knows that his bank account isn’t going to thank him for it (side-note: when he says ‘bank account’, he’s really just referring to the box in his closet where he keeps the little cash he owns; that’s basically what a bank account is, isn’t it? Somewhere where the cash goes. His is just, well, not in an actual bank. Sue him; or don’t, because he dropped out of law school six months ago to pursue his dream of becoming a famous author of, uh, zombie-slash-detective novels and yeah, please don’t sue him. He knows enough about lawyers and 'lawyering' to know that he can definitely not afford one.)

Instead, Nick goes five and a half days without any caffeine, getting more miserable and grumpier by the hour, and then, when Schmidt eventually banishes him from the loft by literally pushing him out of the door _without his keys_ (“Nick, just looking at you moping around and hating on the world is making me start to develop wrinkles! Wrinkles, Nicholas!”), he gets his act together and braves _that_ coffee store again. He’s got no keys, he has nowhere else to go, so he might as well…go there, right?

(That’s what he tells himself anyway. He tries not to think too hard about the fact that he’s spent the last five and a half days writing about the adventures of Julius Pepperwood _and_ Jessica, and that Sleeping Nick can’t stop dreaming about girls with wide grins and blue eyes.)

He regrets heading there almost immediately though (well, okay, ‘immediately’ is maybe not the right word, because it still takes a stupidly long time to get to the counter, but it’s somehow not as bad as last time), because Jess(ica)’s eyes spark up in recognition as soon as he steps forward, mouth curving up into a grin, and—

“—Hey! Turtleface!”

He tilts his head, pulls a face, grimacing hard. Why is he here again? He’s an idiot, that’s why.

“Never call me that again, _Jessica_ ,” he says swiftly, putting one hand out in warning, cutting her off with a curt shake of his head.

She just laughs, continues grinning at him, until the silence draws out a little too long and the person behind him clears his throat loudly. She startles at the noise, jumps, and then reaches out for a coffee cup, though there’s still a hint of a grin gracing her lips.

“So,” she starts, slowly drawing the word out, as she grabs a marker with her other hand, preparing to write on the cup, “what can I get you, Miller?”

He blinks, the tiniest of smiles twisting at his lips.

  
“You remember my name?”

She gives him a look as if he’s being stupid for even asking, because _duh_ , then just shrugs her shoulders at him nonchalantly.

“Well, you remembered my name so we're even,” she points out, almost defiantly, and yeah, he guesses he did let that slip out and he may or may not have written two entire book chapters about a fictional Jessica in the past few days.

“Yeah, but your name is on your name tag,” he retorts, slowly crossing his arms, and he’s not really sure why he’s arguing about this, because it’s irrelevant and silly and all he really wanted was a caffeine fix (he swears this trip has _nothing_ to do with the girl behind the counter), but there’s just—ugh, something really infuriating about her in a way that makes it really difficult not to argue back, okay?

She blinks, glances down, registering the name tag pinned neatly on the front of her shirt.

“True,” she says, with another shrug, slower this time, “I guess it is.”

He stares at her for a moment after that, and he’s not sure if he’s imagining it or if he’s just really in need of coffee or something, but he swears the glint in her eyes dampens just a tad.

He clears his throat.

“Uh, americano, regular,” he says, except she’s clearly not listening to him anymore, her eyes wide and alert, staring at a point behind his shoulder.

He looks backwards, though all he can see is a queue of customers behind him, half of them with impatient expressions on their faces, and he’s not at all sure what’s going on right now. Jess(ica) is clearly on edge about something though, her breaths coming out in unsteady gasps, and he can just about hear her whispering _oh god, oh no_.

Nick leans forward slightly in uncharacteristic concern, waves one hand across her eyes and then glances down the counter for some back-up, but the only other person working is cat guy and he’s in the middle of dealing with a customer…which means, yeah, he’s on his own here.

Great.

“Hey,” he starts, waving his hand across her eyes again. “Jessica— _Jess_ , is everything okay?”

She blinks once, twice, then refocuses her gaze on his, biting down gently on her bottom lip.

“I’m—I’m good, I’m fine,” she tells him, forcing a weak smile onto her face, though he doesn’t believe her for a second. “I’ll just, um, I’ll go ahead and make your coffee.”

Nick frowns at her, opens his mouth to try something else, but she’s already turned her back to him; he almost feels like he’s said or done the wrong thing but he doesn’t know the girl so there’s only so much he can do. (…right?) It’s not long until he realises exactly what the problem is though as he’s rudely shoved aside, someone crashing into his shoulder in his rush to get to the front (“watch where you’re going, pal!”).

“—Jess, look, I’m really sorry! What you saw—she didn’t mean anything! It was just a stupid mistake, but I love you, okay? _Only you_.”

Oh.

He frowns harder.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she murmurs, her back still facing the counter, and Nick’s now frowning not just at her back but at the tall guy with long blond hair that’s pushed his way in front of him.

“Jess, I love you. You have to believe me.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then, because he’s a goddamn idiot and he can’t help himself and at some point during this whole exchange he’d started clenching his fists and his nails are really starting to dig into his palms—

“—Jess said she didn’t want to talk to you,” he mutters loudly, then regrets it immediately as tall, blond guy swings his head around, looks _down_ at him and raises an eyebrow.

“And…who are you?”

Nick doesn’t reply immediately, because now he’s, well, if he’s honest, he’s very much terrified. He’s never been great at physical activity and if he was a betting kinda guy, let’s just say he wouldn’t be betting on him to be the one winning this altercation. (Unless his dad was involved; then, he’d be very much betting on the Millers to magically win.)

Jess(ica) is staring at him now though, clutching the coffee – _his_ coffee – between her hands, and he meets her eyes, says a silent prayer, and finds the strength somewhere deep (very deep) inside of him to reply.

  
“Uh, Turtleface?” He tries, and it’s a really stupid thing to say (maybe one of the stupidest things he's ever said - and that's saying a lot) but it somehow does the trick and breaks the tension, Jess(ica) letting out the smallest of chuckles behind the counter. He stands a bit straighter at the welcome sound, swallowing his fears and projecting as much (fake) confidence as he can. Tall, blond guy stares him down for a second, almost looks like he wants to punch him in the face, then shakes his head at him with a roll of his eyes.

“Look, Jess, when you’re ready to talk, please come home,” he says eventually, slowly turning to face her again. “I miss you.”

He looks like he wants to say something more, but he doesn’t; instead, he just presses a hand against her arm, squeezes once, and then leaves. It’s silent for a while after the door slams shut, everyone in the shop stunned into a curious silence, Jess(ica) shuffling on her feet uncomfortably, but then cat guy swings up besides her and clears his throat loudly.

  
“Nothing to see here, people,” he calls out, “nothing to see!”

It takes a second, maybe two, but then everything goes back to normal; well, mostly. He returns his gaze back to the counter and sees that _Jess, not Jessica_ is staring at him with an unreadable expression on her face.

“Thanks for that,” she offers with a soft, grateful smile, then leans over the counter a little and he follows suit. “He, um, that was my ex,” she tells him, which, _yeah_ , clearly, but why would she ever date a clown like that? “He cheated on me and it was a while ago now, but it’s been hard, you know?”

He swallows, nods, and he wants to tell her that he understands how she feels because, well, Caroline dumped him six months ago, right about when he’d decided to drop out of law school and spend his time writing detective novels, and he’d spent a good three, four months drowning his sorrows; but instead, because he’s a Miller and _feelings_ are not things that he ever says out loud, even when he desperately wants to, none of that is what comes out of his mouth.

“You smell nice,” he tells her instead, because her head is close enough to his that he can smell whatever fruity shampoo she uses and it’s...uh, it really does smell nice and it’s kinda distracting him from all the drama that’s just happened.

She blinks, startled, but then she meets his eyes again and she’s suddenly laughing, head thrown back. He’s stunned for a second, but then he lets out a laugh too, though that quickly morphs into a grimace as she reaches forward to pat him on the cheek (really, what is with all the patting on the cheek?)

“So do you,” she says, but her voice is all lilting and musical, and he thinks it’s almost— _in song_? Is that what people do? Sing-talk?

“I doubt that’s true,” he replies, then regrets his words immediately, back-tracking, running a hand through his hair. “Not that, you know, I think I smell _bad_ , just, I don’t have fancy soap or anything.”

She squints at him, tilts her head.

“Whatever you say, Miller,” she says, bemused, then continues speaking, and her words make it _his_ turn to be bemused. "I'm fine though, really; I mean, I want to be friends with him eventually so I guess I'm just going to have to wait it out—"

"—Why do you want to be friends with him?!"

"I'm friends with all my ex-boyfriends," she states matter-of-factly, and ugh, _of course_ she is.

She meets his gaze, lips twisting into a wry smile as she catches sight of his expression and then pats him on the cheek again and raises her marker to start scribbling on the coffee cup. He takes the signal, and he shuffles down towards the cash register so that he can pay. Cat guy is there though, ready to shove photos in his face again, and he instantly baulks, leaning back.

“I already picked one last time,” he says, as the phone is brandished at him. “I just want to pay.”

Winston shakes his head at him as he slowly takes his money and hands him his change.

“It’s a daily thing,” he explains, gesturing to his phone, “I’m making a collage of every day that I spend with Furguson so I kinda need you to pick one.”

Nick sighs, clenches his fists in his pocket.

“Fine, hand it over,” he says resignedly, swipes through the collection as fast as possible and then says a number at random. Winston’s watching him though, and as he meets his gaze, he knows that he knows that he isn’t taking this seriously. (Like, at all. How many photos does a man need with his cat?)

He sighs again, restarts the process, flicking through at a steady pace. Maybe he needs to…reconsider this whole no-instant-coffee thing? He stops on one of Winston and the cat in matching detective costumes and hey, he’s not saying he’s a pet person or approves of fancy dress, but he can—he can kinda get behind this concept. 

“This one,” he says.

“Really? You don’t think the matching trenchcoats were too much?”

Nick shakes his head, glancing at the photo again.

“Nope,” he tells him, then, because actually, that is a really _excellent_ coat and it might help him get more of Pepperwood written if he dressed up like him (isn’t that what Hemingway, also known as the greatest author to walk the Earth, did? Live and breathed the characters?), proceeds to ask him exactly where he ordered it. Winston pulls a face, looks slightly embarrassed, but Nick patiently waits for an answer.

“Well, uh, so...that’s actually…a woman’s coat,” Winston admits, and Nick leans back, slightly horrified by the idea. (He makes a mental note of the website anyway; _he’d_ know it was a woman’s coat, but no-one else would, right? …and if he wants to stop being broke and prove to everyone - namely Schmidt - that he’d did the right thing by dropping out of law school, he kinda needs to get those Pepperwood pages written _fast_.)

“And…here’s your coffee.”

Nick takes the offered cup from Winston, glancing down straight away at the side, his mouth twisting into a smile as he sees a familiar frowning little turtle staring back at him, though this time it’s accompanied by a scribbled message in speech bubbles.

_Thanks, Miller :)_

_PS – you called me Jess. Name tag or not, I know you remembered my name._

He blinks, pulls a face.

“Did I call you Jess?” He asks, as he swings by the front of the counter on his way out, voice loud enough to get her attention. “I don’t remember.”

Jess just grins back, giggles, and it’d normally be the type of sound that would bug the hell out of him, but he can’t help but grin back in response until his cheeks kinda truly hurt because grinning at girls (or, well, grinning at _anyone_ ) is really not the sort of thing he does very often.

Yeah, so, he’s screwed.

* * *

It takes Schmidt five whole seconds before he decides he needs to interrogate him. He walks back to the loft, hammers at the door (“Schmidt, open the door! You kicked me out this morning without my keys!”), his half-finished coffee still lukewarm in his hand. Schmidt eventually opens the door, glances at him, then frowns.

“Nicholas, sit down,” he says, pulling him forward and into the loft, shoving him roughly down onto the couch. “What is—what is your face doing?”

“My _face_?”

“Are you—is that— _are you smiling?!”_

“No,” he says instantly, shaking his head hard multiple times, but Schmidt just leans forward, squinting at him, until their faces are way too close for comfort. “Schmidt, what are you doing?! I swear to God, if you're about to try and kiss me again or something, I'm going to—”

“—You _are_ ,” he accuses, as if it’s a bad thing, and ugh, he will never understand Schmidt sometimes. “You’re smiling.”

There’s a pause.

“What happened today?” Schmidt asks, moving away and sitting opposite to him, crossing his legs, and it’s at this moment that Nick really registers that Schmidt’s wearing a shiny blue kimono and, uh, _what_? "Tell me everything."

“—What the hell are you wearing?”

“Don’t change the subject, Nicholas,” Schmidt says, then his eyes grow a bit softer, understanding. “I haven’t seen you smile like that since before Caroline dumped you.”

Nick swallows, tilts his head, then promptly deflects, because that’s what Nick Miller does best; it’s partly how he’d made it so far into law school in the first place.

“Seriously, Schmidt, what the hell are you wearing?”

“ _Nicholas_.”

“ _Schmidt_.”

The silence draws longer until Schmidt eventually lets out a noise that’s half-disgust, half-frustration, raising his hands at him in exasperation. He silently gets up, retreats into his room without another word and aggressively slams the door shut, and Nick sighs loudly because he knows that means he’s going to be getting the silent treatment from Schmidt for at least a week and he didn’t even do anything wrong (this time)!

Again, he’s _so_ screwed.

("Nicholas, I can smell that cheap coffee from in here - drink it outside!")


	3. body gelato and one night stands

Schmidt’s mad at him for over a week, partly because Nick refuses to tell him any details about his life because _there’s nothing to talk about, Schmidt!_ (like, really, there isn’t; he’s just developed a fondness for coffee shop coffee, that’s all) and partly because he’s in the shower one day and he’s suddenly reaching for Schmidt’s fancy soap instead of his own. He’ll admit it (somewhat reluctantly): Schmidt’s soap does smell miles better than his (also known as, the cheapest one available at the drugstore), almost like, uh, woods and stones (don’t ask him to elaborate on what ‘stones’ smell like, they just—smell like this, okay?), and he kinda just wants to, well, get close enough to Jess so she can...smell him again? (He slaps himself on the cheeks hard after that thought because, yeah, he really needs to get a grip. This is stupid; really, really stupid. He doesn’t even know the girl and judging from her stupidly tall and stupidly blond ex, he’s definitely not her type… so, seriously, Miller, _get a grip_.)

Schmidt realises what he’s done almost immediately, storming into his bedroom without knocking. He stands there, arms crossed and glaring down at Nick, even though Nick’s yelping in horror at his sudden appearance, scrambling under the covers because he was in the middle of getting changed and he doesn't quite have his pants on yet (they have doors! they have doors and boundaries, buddy!)

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice, Nick?” Schmidt asks furiously, though Nick’s 95% sure it’s a rhetorical question so he doesn’t answer, tugging the covers up and over his chest to prevent himself from being too exposed. “Did you _seriously_ think that I wouldn’t notice that you’d touched my body gelato with your grubby hands?”

He lets out a slow, careful breath, then tilts his head and feigns innocence, even though he knows that he’s a shitty liar and Schmidt will never buy it. (Although, come on, Schmidt kinda brought this on himself for proudly owning 'body gelato' and actually insisting on calling it that. He may or may not have tried to eat some once in a drunken stupor, but that's a story for another time.)

“What are you talking about, Schmidt?”

Schmidt narrows his eyes, his left eyebrow twitching in badly concealed outrage, then storms off again, with a “Nick, you used up half the tub! Half the tub! I know that you let yourself go after the Caroline fiasco and you have more body space to cover, but seriously, Nicholas? Even _you_ don’t need that much gelato!”

Nick blinks hard at that, runs a hand through his hair, then lifts the covers up and peers down at his half-naked self. Yeah, so, he’d spent a good three to four months after Caroline dumped him living on a diet that solely consisted of alcohol and frozen pizzas, and he didn’t cut his hair or shower until Schmidt literally attacked his hair with some scissors in his sleep, but he doesn’t think he’s _let himself go_. If he’s honest, he thought he’d been doing pretty well lately, all things considered. He’s showering daily, vacuuming his room weekly (when he remembers), and he’s been making steady progress on his second novel. _Z_ _is for Zombies,_ his (kinda stupid, kinda terrible) book that he'd written when he was very much still in his high phase and had somehow managed to convince someone to sell (honestly, to this day he doesn't understand how that happened; then again, people pay good money for blank notebooks so at least his has words in it?), has been doing weirdly well lately too, which has been helping him make the rent and just about cover his steadily increasing coffee expenditure; in the last two months, it’s started to gather a weird cult following thanks to a bunch of ‘rebellious’ kids deciding that they’d protest the educational system by doing their literature reviews on it (except, what he doesn’t get is: if they really wanted to protest the educational system, why bother doing the literature review at all? Moral of the story: kids are stupid, Nick Miller is smart. Like, almost finished law school kinda smart.)

He sighs as he hears a door slam shut, then drags himself out of bed, tugs on his hoodie, grabs his laptop and heads out of the loft. It’s becoming routine now; he’ll stop by the coffee shop, exchange a couple of sarcastic-slash-stupid-slash-silly remarks with Jess until she’s either rolling her eyes at him in exasperation or grinning that _grin_ of hers, pick a cat photo for Winston, and then he’ll head to the park to write, turtle-etched cup in hand… except, today, he reaches the front of the (oddly short) queue to see that Jess isn’t behind the counter like she normally is, and he hates himself a bit for being disappointed by it; instead, it’s Aly who is standing in front of him, looking at him curiously, eyes sharp, and he shifts uncomfortably under her gaze.

“Hey, is Jessica, uh, _Jess_ around?”

Aly’s eyes narrow, and he gets the weird feeling that she knows what he’s thinking even though _he’s_ not sure what he’s thinking. It's an unnerving feeling and his back starts to feel damp, which is ridiculous really, because all he’s doing is standing completely still. Not exactly rocket science.

“She’s on a break,” Aly says, after a pause, then, “what can I get you?”

It takes Aly less than two minutes to get his coffee made and paid for, and—whoa, okay, he guesses this whole coffee thing is much more efficient when the person behind the counter isn’t doodling frowning sea creatures on coffee cups or humming made-up theme songs about her life.

“Here you go,” Aly says, handing him the coffee cup whilst he’s midway through selecting a cat photo (is it weird that it’s becoming a normal thing for him to be doing now? Like, now he actually holds out a hand to take the phone from Winston as soon as he gets to the cash register without being prompted.) “…Bishop, what have I told you about getting customers to choose daily Furguson photos? I swear, between you and Jess—”

“—but look at how cute he is!” Winston says, completely undeterred, snatching the phone back from Nick and shoving it proudly in Aly’s face. She glances down, her eyes softening slightly as she squints at the screen, then lets out a half-hearted exasperated sigh.

“Fine, I’ll allow it,” she states eventually, the hint of a smile twisting at her lips as Winston beams up at her in response. “…but _only_ if there’s no-one queuing to pay.”

Winston nods, giving her a mock salute, which makes that hint of a smile become an actual smile, and Nick’s suddenly not quite sure why he’s still hanging about watching this exchange. Aly glances over at him again with that mind-reading look (seriously, _c_ _an she read his mind?_ ), then raises a hand and points towards the back corner of the café.

“Jess is over there,” she says, then walks away.

* * *

It’s embarrassing, really, but it takes him a good sixty seconds before he actually starts moving, and he’s pretty sure it would have taken even longer if Winston hadn’t reached out and physically nudged him on the shoulder.

“You okay, man? Hate to do this to you, but I sort of need you to move along.”

Nick blinks, startled, then nods. He’s okay, just, you know, developed a stupid, all-consuming crush on a pretty girl who he doesn’t even know outside of these walls and who is undoubtedly out of his league. (In other words, no, he’s not _okay_ at all… but he’s a Miller: he’ll survive; he’s used to this.) He shuffles slowly in the direction of Jess’ shadow, though he’s not entirely sure why he’s even going that way. What is he going to do? Act all cool and try to ask her out? Yeah… _no_. The chances of her saying yes are probably less than 1% (like, come on, Nick: you’re the kinda guy that borrows his best friend’s fancy soap and gets _caught doing it_ , not the kinda guy that can swoop in and charm a girl like her; well, not sober, anyway. Things might be different if he had a few beers in him, but he doesn’t, so…yeah) and he’s not sure the little self-esteem he has could take the rejection. No, he’ll continue this casual banter type thing they have going, weasel his way into becoming her friend, never tell her how much Sleeping Nick thinks about her, and—well, that’s about it, really.

Yeah, that sounds like a solid plan.

(…except, if it’s such a solid plan, why does it make his chest hurt when he thinks about it?)

“Miller? Do you need something? I’m on a break right now, but I’m sure Aly or Winston would be happy to help.”

Nick blinks, realises he’s somehow right in front of her table now, hovering like an idiot, then registers that she’s not alone. He glances down, recognising the woman sitting next to Jess as the woman that had defended Jess when he was in the queue here the first time, and tries his best to paste a somewhat _normal_ expression on his face.

“Miller?”

“I, uh, I just came to say…hi?” He manages to get out, but his voice cracks halfway through, and why is his mouth suddenly so dry? What is wrong with him? He had a plan: a solid plan! “But, uh, I see you’re busy so, never mind, I’ll just…go.”

“No, no, sit,” Jess says, patting the chair next to her, and he thinks _to hell with it,_ and sits himself down besides her, ignoring the fact he can smell her fruity shampoo wafting over him again. She smiles at him, offers him half of her cupcake, and he’s so weirdly anxious that he just stares right back and doesn’t say anything. (Yeah, he’s smooth.)

“I could actually use some insight from you, Miller,” Jess says, after she briefly introduces him to her friend, Cece (kinda strange name, but okay), “seeing as you’re, you know, a man.”

Nick blinks again, clears his throat, already uncomfortable with this line of conversation. (Seriously, if one of them mentions the words ‘menstrual cycle’, he’s out. Don’t get him wrong; he dated Caroline all the way through college so he’s entirely comfortable with the whole, you know, mechanics of it, but it's not exactly something that he wants to be discussing with Jess...)

“So,” she starts, and he’s already regretting sitting down because there’s surely no way her sentence is going to end well, not when she's tapping her chin thoughtfully like that. “I’ve been thinking about how to move on from everything, and I think...I think I want to try a one night stand. It's been a while, and, well, I'm _twirly_ , if you catch my drift."

He stares, eyes wide, chokes on a bit of air. (Is it weird that now he really wishes they were discussing menstrual cycles instead? Anything but this. Thinking about Jess having a one night stand makes his stomach turn, and not in a good way.)

"I do not," he stammers out, though he does, and he has absolutely no idea why she feels comfortable enough to be casually discussing her, what was it that she called it?, _twirliness_ with him in the middle of a coffee shop. (Unless, he's already managed to friend-zone himself? In which case, congrats Miller: new record!) "...and, you _think_ you want to try one?"

Jess tilts her head, as if it’s the first time she’s considering the statement, even though she’s the one that said it in the first place.

“Yeah,” she states, jaw set, though she doesn’t sound entirely convincing, “that's what guys do, right? I read a bunch of articles about it - from reliable sources! - on the internet."

( _Of course_ she did.)

He squints at her, swallows uncomfortably, his brain spinning as he tries to look for an escape route (how weird would it be if he just got up and ran/moonwalked away?) Jess just leans a bit closer though, and then he's just staring at her lips and thinking about how they're kinda the same colour as strawberries and—whoa, Miller, take it down a notch. Don't screw this up.

“I wouldn’t know,” he says eventually, voice flat, purposefully ignoring the fact that Jess’ friend raises one eyebrow at his words as if she doesn’t really believe him.

The truth is, he _doesn’t_ know. Caroline had been his first serious girlfriend, and after she’d dumped him, well, he’d been too miserable to even think about one night stands because all he’d ever really known was Caroline. Schmidt had tried to set him up numerous times, of course, proclaiming himself as Nick's ‘ultimate wing _bro_ ’ (“Jar, Schmidt, jar,” he’d managed to grumble out, before disappearing under his covers again), even going as far as to literally drag a poor girl from a bar all the way into his bedroom, but it’d never worked. He’d just been too…sad to do anything. It’d hurt, okay? He’s not—he’s not embarrassed to admit it.

Since then, he’s gone on a couple of dates, if only to partly appease Schmidt. He’d dated a cool, feisty lawyer called Julia for almost three weeks (!), but then she’d bought him a cactus out of nowhere and he’d killed it and, well, _yeah_. Anyway. It’s cool; he’s cool. He has a novel to write, things to do, life to live.

“I think I’m going to try it,” Jess says, more firmly this time, her voice interrupting his thoughts, and his eyes widen in alarm as he refocuses on the conversation. Sure, okay, he’s a goddamn coward and he’ll probably never be brave enough to ask her out, but does that mean that he has to just sit here and listen to her contemplating one night stands? Does the world hate him or something? “I’m going to go down to the bar tonight, find a guy, and then I'm going to introduce him to Little Jess.”

Little...okay, _what_. Ugh.

Let's just pretend she did not just say that. (...and let's also pretend that he's now not thinking about it; he's a man, a human man, it's not his fault!)

“Jess, come on, you, of all people, don’t have one night stands,” Jess’ friend, Cece, cuts in, rolling her eyes in a sort of fond exasperation, and though Nick is still kinda terrified of her, he’s also immensely grateful that she’s voicing her thoughts. Finally, someone on this table has some common sense. “You get way too attached. I mean, you could have an emotional connection with a shoe on the side of the road for crying out loud!"

“Oh, one shoe? I hate that.”

Nick tries – and fails – to stifle a grin at that, then regrets it as Jess turns to him, eyes wide and beseeching, as if she’s pleading with him to agree with her (and honestly, it would have probably worked if he hadn't immediately forced himself to stare at her half-finished cupcake instead. Is it too late to accept her offer to have it? He's actually kinda hungry, now that he thinks about it.)

"What do you think, Miller? What do you think I should do?"

“I don’t…” he starts, then trails off, clears his throat. How does he get across that the last thing he wants her to do is to have a one night stand because he doesn’t want to think about her with some stranger _without_ revealing exactly why and possibly ruining this semi-friendship they have? Jess is looking at him curiously though, waiting for an answer, and his mouth is opening again before he can think twice.

“I don’t think you’re the type of girl to have one night stands,” he comments, and he means it to come out like a compliment (really, he swears he does), because he _doesn’t_ think she’s that type of girl and he likes that about her, but it doesn’t quite work; in fact, it seems to have the complete opposite effect, and damn it, he should have never sat down at this stupid table.

Jess narrows her eyes at him, cheeks flushed.

“You don’t know anything about me, Miller,” she counters reproachfully, then, her voice a pitch higher than normal and, he’ll give her credit, only slightly faltering. “I _could_ be that girl.”

Nick shrugs, slowly taking another sip of his coffee as he watches her.

“I don’t think you are, Jessica,” he retorts, with a shake of his head, unable to help himself, and now he feels like he’s on the verge of mocking her and this, uh, this was not his original intention at all! He—he hadn’t wanted to be mean to her, he’d wanted to be nice! “You’re the type of girl who lives on a sparkly rainbow, drives a unicorn around and sings all the time.”

A pause.

“You know what? I’m going to do it,” Jess announces, and he starts to get the impression that him being here trying to convince her that what she wants _isn’t_ a one night stand is actually spurring her on even more. Well, that’s just…excellent, isn’t it, Miller? Fantastic. “I’m going to find a guy, and we’re going to have meaningless sex, and it’s going to be great.”

“ _Fine_ ,” he bites out, taking a big gulp of his coffee, the liquid almost burning his throat as he chokes it down, and he’s not sure why he’s so infuriated—well, no, he _does_ , and damn it, why does this keep happening to him? How does he always make things worse without even trying?

“Do whatever you want! I don’t ‘know’ you after all, do I, Jess?” he mutters irritably, his hands forming the air-quotes and all.

“Yeah! You don’t know me, and I—I don’t care what you think!”

She’s half-yelling at him now, her voice loud enough that several customers have whipped their heads around to stare at them, but instead of feeling embarrassed or self-conscious, it’s kinda, well, doing it for him in ways that he knows Sleeping Nick is going to remember later so he takes the bait:

  
“—Then why did you ask me?!”

He’s breathing hard by this point, fuelled by misplaced rage, and she’s just staring at him, her mouth half-open, gaping. She doesn’t reply, seemingly stunned into silence, eyeing him with an unreadable expression, and in the end, he lets out a loud sigh and storms off with a snarky ‘ _have a nice one night stand, Jessica!’_

…so, yeah, that happened. Looks like he’ll be buying instant coffee again. Way to go, Miller.

* * *

(“Jess, babe, you know he likes you, right? Like, I think he’s really into you,” Cece says as soon as Nick is safely out of earshot, her voice almost conspiratorial, glancing at Jess with one eyebrow raised. Jess is already shaking her head adamantly though, waving a hand dismissively in her direction.

“Miller? _No_ ,” she replies, eyes wide, words emphatic. “Nope. No. Definitely not. He's not. Why would he—no, we’re just friends, well, not even that, he’s just—he’s just a customer.”

“Whatever you say, Jess,” Cece says, then steals the rest of her cupcake whilst she’s distracted. “But I'm telling you, he _likes_ you _._ ”)

* * *

If he ends up at the same bar as Jess later that evening, it’s purely a coincidence (honest to god, it is; he's not some weirdo stalker, okay?). He spends the afternoon on the park bench ranting about Schmidt and Jess to his strong, silent friend Tran instead of writing, and Tran tells him that he should buy Schmidt a _forgiveness_ _cookie_ , so he does. It somehow works because Tran is magical, and Schmidt drags him out to the bar that night, everything seemingly forgiven. The only problem is, for some reason, when they bump into Jess and Cece as they’re trying to buy a round of drinks, she doesn’t answer to Jess or Jessica. Apparently, she’s _Katie_ now, and it’s confusing as hell.


	4. fake names and regrets

Schmidt connects the dots almost immediately, though it’s for all the wrong reasons. Nick’s dragged – quite literally – by the sleeve of his hoodie to the front of the bar, grumbling (kinda; okay, not at all) under his breath. He’d wanted to spend the evening lying on the couch watching a game with a beer in his hand, not being manhandled around a bar by Schmidt—but, hey, if this means that he won’t wake up every morning (well, lunchtime?) to a tense stony silence, he’ll suck it up for one night. (He’d never admit it out loud, but he’s always hated getting in fights with Schmidt; mostly because their fights are always so stupid, but also because, well, it’s Schmidt and the guy loves him _so damn much._ Probably more than anyone in his lifetime will…and that’s a really scary thought. Snap out of it, Miller.)

They’re in the middle of trying to get the bartender’s attention, Schmidt waving his hands around like an idiot, when he overhears snippets of conversation from somewhere behind him, the voice mildly familiar:

“Hey, Jess, isn’t that the guy from the coffee shop?”

…and then,

“It is, Jess. That’s the guy!”

Nick swings his head around slightly, squinting at the crowd until he finds what he’s looking for. Jess is about ten steps away in a pretty red dress, cheeks flushed, giving him a wave as she holds a glass of pink wine in her other hand. He doesn’t return the wave, slowly crossing his arms, her words from earlier echoing in the back of his head. ( _You don’t know anything about me, Miller._ ) He knows it’s irrational for him to actually be holding a grudge against her for that, because, let’s be honest, he _doesn’t_ know her, but also—he’s a Miller, and irrational grudges are kinda his thing. She's still waving at him, so he crosses his arms a little harder, frowns. Schmidt follows his gaze, letting out a low, impressed whistle as he sees where he's looking, reaching over to clap him on the back.

“Is that why you’ve been going to the coffee shop everyday?" Schmidt asks, without moving his gaze. “Well, I have to say Nick, I’m relieved to know that you’re not going there because you actually like the taste of horribly burnt coffee beans—”

“—The coffee’s good,” he cuts in, with a shake of his head, turning back towards the counter. “I only go there for the _coffee_.”

“In that case, have you gone blind in addition to losing your tastebuds? Nicholas, have I taught you absolutely nothing?”

Nick grimaces, shakes his head again, tries his best to tune Schmidt out as he leans over the counter and orders a beer. He hasn’t gone blind, _obviously,_ but he kinda wishes he had, especially if the reason Jess is at the bar tonight is because she’s planning on carrying out her whole one night stand mission. That's something that he really doesn't need to witness, thank you very much.

Schmidt is still staring right at Jess and Cece as he turns back around with a beer in hand, eyes calculating. Nick grimaces at the sight, briefly squeezing his eyes shut. He knows the expression on Schmidt’s face all too well and coupled with Jess’ plan, this— _this cannot happen_. Yeah, no.

“Schmidt, don’t,” he warns, but it’s too late and Schmidt has already started walking in their direction, chest puffed up, arms flexed. He's 90% sure that Schmidt's close to whipping off his shirt in the middle of the bar for absolutely no reason and—ugh, he needs to stop this. “ _Schmidt_ , I swear to God if you—"

He starts following Schmidt, but it’s trickier than expected given the sheer number of people mingling by the bar and the fact that he’s never had the best hand-eye coordination, but he eventually manages to work his way through the crowd with half of his beer still in his glass (a win, in his book). It’s not Jess that Schmidt is speaking to-slash-trying-to-flirt-with though, but Cece, and he lets out a breath that he didn’t even realise he was holding in as he registers this and—goddamn it, Miller. Stop _._ This little crush of yours isn’t going to end well (for you).

Nick shakes his head, slaps his cheeks with his free hand to recentre himself, before glancing at Jess and forcing a neutral expression onto his face. She’s giving him a lopsided grin, lopsided in the way only alcohol can induce, staring up at him with those blue, blue, _blue_ eyes. He clears his throat, weirdly unable to look away, though he forces himself to take a sip of his beer just to have something to do. Jess continues watching him, her eyes widening slightly as he swallows, then sticks one hand out at him, almost as if she wants him to shake it.

“I’m Katie _,_ ” she says.

“No, you’re not,” he retorts, purely out of reflex, squinting at her as he tries to figure out what on Earth is going on in that head of hers and what that even meant. “You’re Jess.”

Jess shakes her head, then grins up at him again.

“Not tonight,” she tells him, stumbling forward slightly and giving him an exaggerated wink – except, she’s tipsy enough that she doesn’t quite register that she’s done it and ends up winking at him three times in a row.

He lets out a sigh, hand going up to rub at his temple.

“Don’t do this, Jess,” he says, reaching out to slowly pry her wine glass from her, ignoring the fact that he can almost smell her fruity shampoo again. “This is obviously a bad idea, and I’m—I’m not going to let you do this.”

Jess squints at him, tilts her head, twisting her hands together.

“Why? Why do you care so much?’

A beat passes, Nick unable to give a verbal answer, simply shrugging at her, and then Jess’ expression changes, a flicker of understanding entering her eyes, followed by the slight twinge of pity.

“ _Oh_.”

Nick blinks hard, swallows uncomfortably, shakes his head fast. She’s staring at him intensely, her eyes searching his face, looking more sober than she has since he’s bumped into her here, and it’s almost like she can see into his head or something and—yeah, he needs to get out of this situation right now.

“No, no, that’s not why,” he mutters fast, breaking eye-contact slightly, feeling the first beads of sweat forming in his lower back. "It’s not that. I just—look, I like ya, okay? I care about ya…as a _friend_.”

Jess squints at him, for a horrifying second looks like she doesn’t really believe him, but then all of a sudden, she’s grinning at him widely, reaching up and patting him on the cheek (a few too many times).

“Well, I like you too, Miller,” she tells him, and even though he knows that she doesn’t mean it in the exact same way that he’d meant it, it makes him smile anyway.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she states, with an affirmative nod, and then leans in, grabs the front of his shirt, tugging until he relaxes and lowers his head down enough so that she can whisper into his ear. “Now, stop worrying about me, okay? I’m going to be just fine.”

He blinks.

“Jess, Jessica—wait,” he starts, but it’s too late and she’s let go of him and vanished into the crowd.

Damn it.

* * *

It's a while before Nick manages to find her again. Jess is sitting on the sidewalk outside of the bar alone, staring into the distance, arms wrapped around herself, shivering slightly. She glances up at him as he approaches, gives him a weak smile and then pats the spot next to her.

“Here,” he says, shoving off his hoodie and then taking a seat besides her, holding it out.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to—"

“—Just take the damn hoodie, Jessica,” he interrupts, cutting her off and draping it over her shoulders.

She stops resisting almost immediately, reaching up to pull it around her properly, and she looks a little like she’s drowning under the material, eyes all red and miserable, and it makes his heart clench almost painfully in his chest.

“Thanks,” she says softly, shooting him a grateful smile, and then, “...why can’t I do this?”

Nick shrugs, leans backwards slightly, taking a sip of his beer.

“I told you already,” he says, with another shrug, “I don’t think you’re that type of girl, and that’s _cool_.”

She gives him a sideways glance, tilts her head slightly.

“You think I’m cool?”

“No, _no,_ that’s not what I said, Jess,” he protests, with a shake of his head, but it’s too late and she’s already smiling, and—well, if it makes her smile, he’s not exactly going to retract his words, is he? He’s not _cruel_. (...plus, you know, he does think she's cool, in her own way.)

“I just… I don’t want to end up alone, you know?”

“You’re not going to end up alone. Trust me, you're going to be just fine,” he tells her, taking another sip.

He means it; she's beautiful, and funny, and unlike any girl he's ever met, and her ex was a clown for not realising that. She twists around to face him, biting her lip, looking at him as if she desperately wants to believe him, and he's overcome with an urge to fix everything, but he doesn't know how to.

“Look, I, uh, I get it. More than you know," he eventually admits, staring straight ahead.

It’s odd, really, because he hasn’t spoken to anyone about what happened with Caroline (not even Schmidt, but the constant sobbing gave it away pretty fast), but the words are spilling out of his mouth before he can help himself.

“I was dumped about six months ago by my college girlfriend and it was rough,” he says, with a shrug. “…so, I get it. Life really sucks sometimes.”

“Do you know why she dumped you?”

He shrugs again. He doesn’t, not really, but he doesn’t want to know either. If he thinks about it too hard, he might start spiralling into that black hole of depression again, and that would be bad news for everyone. Plus, he’s kinda come to terms with everything now and he’s really doing _just fine_.

“You should ask her,” Jess says, nudging him on the shoulder, “otherwise you’ll always be wondering, what was it? Was there something that I could have done differently?”

He doesn’t reply, pursing his lips. He’s not sure what he’d do if he ever bumped into Caroline again, but he’s pretty sure the last thing that he’d do would be to ask her why she’d _dumped_ him. He’s a mess, he knows that; he doesn’t need Caroline telling him that too. No, it's better if he just shoves all those memories into a box in the back of his head and tries his best to forget about them. He's made it this far in his life doing that, after all.

“Trust me, Miller,” Jess says, nudging his shoulder gently again. “You should find out; you'll end up as an old man filled with regret if you don't."

They fall into a peaceful silence, Nick staring aimlessly across the road as he runs Jess’ words through his head, Jess humming a vaguely familiar melody quietly under her breath. He's not really sure how much time passes, but he also doesn't care. Sitting out here shoulder-to-shoulder with Jess in his hoodie, away from all the commotion of the bar and Schmidt's shameless attempts to flirt with Cece _("What was your name again? Cecilia? Cece? Checilia?"),_ is not the worst way to spend an evening.

“I probably should have told ya this before now, but my name’s not actually Miller,” he says eventually, breaking the silence, his lips quirking into a wry smile as Jess instantly whips her head around to stare at him, eyes wide.

“What? What do you mean? You gave me a fake name?”

“No, uh, I mean, it _is_ my name, but it’s my last name,” he clarifies, and he’s not really sure why he’s telling her this right here, right now, but it feels like a good a moment as any. “My name’s Nick. Nick Miller.”

Jess smiles, tilts her head as she meets his eyes.

“Nick Miller,” she echoes, her mouth slowly forming the words as if she’s trying them out. “Nicholas Miller.”

“—It’s just Nick.”

She grins, eyes sparkling, and he groans half-heartedly because this is clearly a lost cause and he has a feeling he's going to have to get used to being called Nicholas from now on. (Could be worse, he guesses. He's never liked being called Nicholas, always associated it as being the name he used to get called whenever he got into trouble as a child (or, with Schmidt), but it doesn't sound _too_ bad when she says it; in fact, it actually sounds kinda...nice.)

“Well, then, my name’s _just_ Jess. Jess Day.”

She’s laughing then and he joins in, until he can’t really remember what was so funny in the first place. His brain is all fuzzy, but it’s a nice kinda fuzzy, and he doesn’t think he’s felt so light and carefree and weirdly warm in a very long time.

“Nice to meet you, Nicholas,” she tells him, with a mock salute, offers him a hand to shake, and then dissolves into giggles as he stares down at her hand with a grimace. "Friends?"

"Friends," he replies, with a nod, ignoring her still outstretched hand.

He takes another sip of his beer, and then, fuelled by some liquid confidence, he carefully reaches behind her back with one arm, slowly sliding an arm around her shoulders, holding his breath all the way. She doesn’t resist, leaning into him slightly, shoulders still shaking in laughter, and this is—this is nice. Really, really nice.

He'll put up with being called Nicholas if it means he gets to live more moments like this.


	5. zombies and cupcakes

Everything starts to fall into place after that evening – to an extent. He heads to the coffee shop every morning, sometimes with Schmidt in tow, though Schmidt refuses to even touch anything inside the building, let alone order a coffee; he just hovers annoyingly over Nick’s shoulder, grumbling about how terrible the coffee is (“How do you know that if you haven’t tasted it, you clown? Here, try some.” “Do _not_ put that anywhere near me, Nick. I swear, I will burn your room down if you do—” “Burn my room down?! What are you talking about?!”), hoping for a glimpse of Cece. Jess gets marginally more efficient at customer service as the days pass, but she always makes sure to ask him about his morning whenever he shows up and continues doodling grinning turtles on his cups. He starts writing in the coffee shop sometimes too, partly because he realises that he gets more writing done when he can sit his laptop on an actual table rather than just balancing it precariously on his lap like he’s been doing at the park (who would have thought?) and partly because it means that Jess will come and sit opposite him on her breaks and offer him half of her cupcake and a smile.

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask you, what are you working on?” Jess asks on her latest break, splitting her cupcake in half without verbally asking if he wants it and sliding it across the table towards him. “I mean, you don’t have to tell me if it’s confidential or private or something, just, I've noticed you making that turtleface of yours a lot when you’re focused on the screen so I was curious—”

“—For the last time, I look nothing like a turtle, Jessica,” he retorts immediately, pulls _that_ very face, but at this point, he knows arguing with her over this is a lost cause so it comes out a bit weak.

Nick closes his screen partially, hiding the words from view, glancing up to meet her gaze. He’s not embarrassed by his novel-in-progress, per se, but it’s very much unfinished and he’s not sure he necessarily wants to divulge the fact that he named one of the main characters after her…or, worse, that his story’s taken a bit of a turn and Pepperwood and Jessica Night are currently stuck in a whole will-they-won’t-they dynamic and he's pretty sure it's going to teeter decisively towards the _yeah, they will_ by the end of it. (Hey, it’s his book. He’s not sure he’ll ever get the guts to make a move in real life, but Pepperwood can. So, yeah. Anyway.)

“I’m, uh, I’m working on a novel,” he tells her, squirming slightly under her intrigued gaze.

“A novel?” Jess echoes with interest, leaning forward. “You’re a writer?”

“Kinda,” he says, with a nonchalant shrug. “Trying to be.”

“Anything that I would have read?”

He shakes his head, slides his laptop screen completely shut, running a hand messily through his hair.

“I doubt it,” he says. “I wrote a book about zombies two years ago. It’s kinda terrible, but it made me realise how much I like creating characters and worlds and—well, long story short, I dropped out of law school to give writing a go.”

Jess blinks, does a double-take.

“You went to law school?”

He shrugs in response, a little affronted by her reaction.

“Yeah,” he confirms, then crosses his arms defensively, his stomach flipping unpleasantly. “What, you don’t think that I could be a lawyer?”

Jess shakes her head, biting her lip.

“No, that's not it: I’m sure you could be a lawyer if you wanted to,” she tells him, and she looks so earnest that he relaxes and allows himself to smile. “I just didn’t picture you as a lawyer, I guess.”

“What did ya think I did?”

Jess squints at him, tilts her head to one side, tapping her chin absentmindedly.

“Honestly? When I first met you, I thought you looked like a rumpled small-town PI; that, or a nutmeg wholesaler.”

He blinks.

“What the hell does a _nutmeg wholesaler_ look like, Jessica?!”

Jess doesn’t answer, just takes a slow, careful bite of her cupcake, her lips twisted into a grin. He narrows his eyes, slowly crossing his arms again, watching as she swallows and then licks her lips. It’s weirdly captivating, and it almost makes him forget what they were even talking about in the first place. Jess grins a bit wider, as if she knows what he’s thinking – but surely not, right? He can't be that transparent? – and takes another bite. She’s halfway done chewing when she suddenly pauses, letting out a gasp, eyes widening.

“—Wait a second, are you the Nick Miller that wrote _Z is for Zombies_?”

He stares, the back of his neck prickling as her words register in his head. Yeah, he’s proud of himself for actually managing to make money from _Z is for Zombies_ , enough to sustain his low maintenance lifestyle, but he can’t say he’s particularly proud of the novel itself. He’s come a long way since then, lived through some kinda scarring, kinda eye-opening real-life experiences, and he can do better than that. He’s sure of it. (Okay, he's 75% sure of it. Okay, 40%.)

“You’ve heard of it?”

Jess chuckles, pulls a face at him.

“I’m a teacher—well, I was a teacher,” she corrects, smile slightly faltering, and he makes a mental note of that fact in his head for later reference. “I read so many book reports about your book and it used to drive me crazy, especially that section with the word search with no actual words in it—” She pauses abruptly, cutting herself off, eyes widening. “—Not that I think your book’s bad or anything, I mean, it’s, um, it’s…good, but—”

“—You don’t need to lie to me, Jess,” he cuts in, sparing her from digging herself into a deeper hole, smiling despite her words. “If I’m totally honest, I was pretty high when I wrote it so…I know what it is.”

“Are, um, are you writing a sequel?”

Nick laughs, shakes his head. If there's one thing he knows, it's that _Z is for Zombies_ does not need a sequel. 

“No, this is something new,” he tells her, his smile growing a bit wider at the look of relief that momentarily washes over her face, because, hey, even though her reaction to his book isn't exactly positive, he’s achieved _something_ with his words and that’s kinda cool. “It’s a detective novel set in New Orleans and it’s about…it’s about a guy fighting with the alligator within.”

Jess leans forward a little, eyes curious, and he slowly reopens his laptop screen, clicking through windows until he’s opened the chapter that introduces the Pepperwood-Schmith rivalry and, more importantly, doesn’t feature Jessica Night.

“Here,” he says, pushing the laptop towards her, his heart beating rapidly in his chest.

She glances up at him in surprise, but he just nods at the screen again until she takes the laptop from him, angling it towards her. Nick holds his breath as her eyes scan the lines on the screen, watching her face intently for any sign of a reaction. She’s mouthing the words as she reads, her eyes expressive, moving from intrigue, to surprise, to shock. He squirms slightly in his seat, feeling anxiety pooling in his gut. This book has taken up half a year of his time (and he’d dropped out of _law school_ to pursue it, something that no-one in his life has ever really understood why), and he feels weirdly exposed. What if she hates it? What if she thinks he’s an awful writer? What if— _breathe,_ Miller. He closes his eyes instead, squeezing them shut, focusing on his breathing, until he feels a light tap on his arm, and then again.

Nick cracks open one eye to see Jess smiling up at him and it looks like she liked it more than _Z is for Zombies_ so that’s a good thing, right?

“Nick, this is incredible,” she tells him, beaming at him now, and he feels all that anxiety inside himself disappear until he’s grinning too. “I could really feel how much Pepperwood and Schmith hate each other, but how they also understand each other entirely… and that gay dog character? The one where you never actually mention he’s gay, but you can just _tell_? It’s—wow, you’re really talented.”

“You think it’s okay?”

Jess laughs lightly, reaching over to punch his arm gently, and he makes a show of wincing in response and tries not to think too hard about the fact that her hands are _really_ soft.

“You heard me the first time,” she teases, and his smile is the most genuine it’s been in a very long time. Ever since he dropped out of law school, he’s had all these doubts right at the back of his head about whether he’d done the right thing and this—this is doing a lot to make those doubts fade away. “It’s not just okay; it’s incredible, Nick.”

* * *

Conversation is easy with Jess, which is odd because Nick’s never been much of a _people_ person (a fact that is 97% Walt Miller’s fault: thanks, dad). There’s just something about the way she reacts to whatever he’s saying, whether it’s the latest moon landing conspiracy he’s read about (“Nick, the moon landing was not faked!” “Yes, it was, there are pictures on the internet that prove it!”) or his latest ideas for new characters ("so, I was thinking that when Pepperwood's at the fish market trying to decide whether the lead he's following is real or not, he could bump into a six year old prodigy of a fisherman who isn't actually a fisherman but one of Schmith's cronies...yeah, that guy loves youths."), that makes him want to tell her _everything_. It’s overwhelming, and scary, but it’s—it’s nice at the same time.

It’s not a one-sided thing either; she starts giving him regular updates on her job hunt, fills him in on the newest ridiculous modelling gig that Cece’s featured in (“She had to play the mustard _in_ the hot dog! The mustard!"), and sneaks him free cupcakes. It’s an unusually _normal_ , easy kind of friendship, and yeah, okay, maybe Sleeping Nick still dreams about her six nights out of seven, but half of the time, those dreams are just him and Jess sitting around talking about their lunches, no funny business involved, and—whoa, he’s getting weird. It’s just, well, Schmidt aside, he’s never met someone that he feels so inherently connected with and—speaking of which,

“What are ya frowning at?”

He squints at Jess over his laptop, his hands hovering over his keyboard. She’s been flicking through her phone as he writes, humming to herself, but for the past minute, she’s just been staring at her screen transfixed, biting her lip tensely.

“Nothing,” she says, startled by his voice, and then, as he raises an eyebrow at her because he knows she’s lying, “well, no, it’s not _nothing_ , but I don’t want to disturb you from your writing. I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than to listen to me—”

Nick closes his laptop screen, gives her a pointed look.

“Out with it, Jessica.”

  
“It’s a long story,” she starts, twisting her hands in her lap. “I’m supposed to be going to a friend’s wedding next week, but he’s just texted me to say that my ex is going to be there too.”

“Oh.”

Not this again. Not her damn ex.

“I’m completely over him, I really am, but, um, it’s been three months and my stuff is still at his place—”

“Wait, your stuff is still there?”

Jess bites her lip, shifts uncomfortably.

“Yeah, I, um, I walked in on him cheating on me and I never went back,” she admits, pulling a face, suddenly looking dangerously teary, bottom lip quivering ever so slightly. “Cece keeps telling me that I should, but I…I don’t know, I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it. It's his hair, it just, it has this weird pull over me.”

Nick leans back in his chair slightly, running a hand through his own hair out of instinct. He's not sure exactly what Jess is talking about with the hair comment, because from what he remembers it was nothing special, but she looks as miserable as she did that night outside the bar and he curses her ex in his head for ever hurting her.

“I could come with, if you want. To…get your stuff back and to the wedding,” he offers before he can stop himself, even though he’s not entirely sure why he’s offering. Confrontations with someone else’s ex-boyfriend and weddings aren’t exactly his idea of a _good time_ , but—if it stops Jess from looking so miserable, he guesses it’s worth putting himself through it. “For, uh, moral support?”

“You’d really do that?” Jess asks him, a hint of surprise in her eyes.

Nick shrugs, breaks eye-contact, suddenly feeling more than a little exposed.

“If you want me to, sure, Day,” he tells her, as he reopens his laptop screen and starts typing again, though he’s not really typing _words_ as much as just…typing for the sake of typing. “It’s not like I have anything better to do.”

It’s silent for a while, and then he feels Jess push her seat back, getting to her feet, tapping him gently on his shoulder.

“I have to get back to work,” she says, then shoots him a grateful, genuine smile, her eyes restored to their normal sparkle, “…but thanks, Miller.”

* * *

Schmidt’s both appalled and stupidly elated when he tells him that he needs his help picking out a suit because he’s agreed to go to a wedding with Jess for moral support.

“Moral support? Really, Nick? _Moral support?_ ” Schmidt echoes, eyebrows raised so high on his face that it almost looks comical. “Is this ‘how to friend-zone yourself 101’? Nicholas, if you like the girl, just ask her on a date like a normal person, don’t invite yourself to a wedding with her—”

“—Shut up, Schmidt. This isn’t, this isn’t about that,” he grumbles back, but he follows Schmidt into his bedroom anyway because he only owns one suit, all the way from his high-school days, and it has a mysterious stain on the left sleeve that’s most likely from a burrito. “Just let me borrow a suit.”

Schmidt narrows his eyes at him, blocks his way to his closet.

“No, no, you don’t get to touch any of the suits in there. They wouldn’t fit you anyway,” he tells him, pulling a box out from under his bed instead. “Right, I’m going to give you some options and I’m going to need you to try them on and let me see them under different lighting conditions: indoors, outdoors, under direct sunlight, in—”

Nick pulls a face, frowns.

“—Can you not just…pick one?”

Schmidt gives him an insulted look, wraps his arms around the box, and Nick has an overwhelming urge to tackle him to the floor and grab the box and run, but he knows that Schmidt would never forgive him if, God forbid, one of his suits touched the floor.

“Nicholas, if you want to borrow a suit from me – and having seen that miserable piece of fabric that you call a suit, you definitely should – you have to follow the process.”

Nick lets out a resigned sigh, slowly nodding, grimacing as Schmidt instantly leaps to his feet, grinning widely at him, opening up the box and shoving some shirts and pants at him.

“Try these on,” Schmidt orders, “I’m going to get a camera.”

“A…camera?”

“Yes, a camera,” Schmidt repeats, rolling his eyes, turning around to rummage through his desk. “How else are we going to know which combination looks best?”

“Uh, we both have eyes, you clown!”


	6. doppelgängers and apricots

It takes three whole hours – three! whole! hours! – of trying on various shirts and pants before Schmidt is finally satisfied, which makes zero sense to Nick because every combination he’s given to try looks identical to him. Aren’t all white shirts…white shirts? (Also, why does Schmidt need so many damn shirts in the first place?) It goes beyond just the suit itself too; Schmidt makes him pick out matching boxers 'just in case', but these are thankfully from his own measly collection and not Schmidt's (though, yeah, he'll admit that he's secretly worn Schmidt's boxers before in his post-Caroline haze, on the days when he'd been too depressed to do his own laundry). Nick goes along with it all because at this point he's too terrified to say no, even though he's 110% sure that his pants are not going to be coming off at this wedding so there's no need for matching underwear. Schmidt tries his best to sneak a peek at his dick as he begrudgingly changes into the fiftieth – well, okay, maybe not fiftieth, but it feels like a whole damn lot – combination, but he manages to cover himself up just in time, though he grumbles extra loudly for a good ten minutes.

“Nick, we’re best friends. How am I going to be able to identify your dead body if I haven’t seen you naked?”

“Uh, using my face?”

“Sure, but, what if you get into an accident and you’re horribly disfigured and all that remains are your private parts? They’ll call me into the police station, and I’ll be standing there saying, “sorry, officer, I can’t help you, because no, I haven’t seen his penis,” and then…boom, you’ll be buried in an unmarked grave—"

Nick pulls a face, furrows his brow, and doesn’t bother justifying that _stupidity_ with an answer. Seriously, sometimes he wonders how Schmidt and him ever became best friends in the first place. Schmidt’s face changes from one of indignation to utter contentment as he reappears though, his pants very much _on_ , and he stands up from his bed, pushing him roughly towards the mirror.

“This is it, Nick,” he says, with a slight smirk on his face as if he’s exceedingly proud of his own handiwork, tilting his head towards Nick’s reflection, “this is the one.”

Nick locks eyes with himself in the glass, runs a hand through his hair, then rolls up his sleeves. As much as he hates to admit it, he came to the right guy. Schmidt knows what he’s doing when it comes to suits, and he looks _good_. (Well, better than he normally looks, anyway… and that’s something, right?)

* * *

Nick agrees to pick Jess up from the coffee shop the day of the wedding, except it turns out that Jess doesn’t believe in arriving fashionably late like normal people and instead makes him promise that he’ll arrive with enough time so that they can get to the venue _at least_ half an hour early. He agrees after an appropriate amount of grumbling (not so) under his breath, though he curses himself in his head the day of for being _weak_ because it means that he has to drag himself out of bed and get dressed up half an hour earlier than he’d wanted to. He’s still half-asleep as he parks his car down the road and steps out onto the sidewalk, but as soon as his eyes land on Jess, everything’s forgiven, because—

“—Whoa, _wow_ , you look great,” he manages to stutter out, his heart pounding in his chest, palms already embarrassingly sweaty as he takes her in. She’s in a dark purple dress, with all these frills and layers, and she’s smiling shyly up at him and she looks… she looks beautiful; _perfect_.

Jess blushes at his words, smiles a little wider, and he can’t help but watch the way the colour slowly spreads across her cheeks.

“You don’t look too bad yourself, Miller,” she says, and then takes a step closer until she’s close enough that he feels like he can’t breathe, reaching out to straighten his tie (which, okay, _maybe_ Schmidt helped him put on; it’s been a long time since he’s had to wear anything that isn't a hoodie and sweatpants). “You look all…fancy.”

“Thanks.”

“Seriously, Nick, I was half-afraid that you were going to turn up in your red hoodie,” she continues, with a laugh, nudging at his shoulder a bit as he tilts his head towards his parked car. “I mean, it’s a nice hoodie, don’t get me wrong, it’s all…you know, worn in, but this is—this is nice. You look good.”

He smiles then, a real, genuine smile, and he makes a mental note to stop wearing so many hoodies. Hey, he can make an effort sometimes, especially when he gets the right kind of push…and Jess looking at him when she’s all dressed up like _that_ is definitely a right kind of push.

Jess begins fiddling with the controls of his car as soon as he starts it, despite his immediate grumbling for her to stop, but it’s too late and the car is quickly filled with the loud, unmistakable, unapologetic sounds of _Cotton-Eye Joe_. Jess blinks hard as it reaches her ears and she recognises it, whips her head around to stare at him, a bemused smile twisting at her lips.

“ _Cotton-Eye Joe_?”

Nick shrugs, because there’s no hiding from it now, and hey, he's pretty confident that nine out of ten people would say that it’s a hit. It's very catchy. Excellent song. He tells her this, keeping his eyes on the road, and she just laughs a little harder, giggling almost in time with the music… except, then the song draws to a close and there’s a beat of complete silence, just the sound of both of them breathing, before it just starts up all over again.

“—Wait, Nick, you listen to _Cotton-Eye Joe_ on repeat?”

He shrugs again – because, really, it’s a great song, okay? He’ll defend it until the day he dies (which, no, Schmidt, will not be in a horrible accident where all that’s left of him is his _dick_ , but knowing his luck, will probably be in the middle of doing something stupid, like, exercising or buying toilet paper at the grocery store) – and lifts his free hand to fist-pump along with the music. Jess stares, and then she’s giggling even harder, shoulders shaking, and is it weird that the sound of her laughter actually goes well with _Cotton-Eye Joe_?

They’re mostly silent through four more cycles of _Cotton-Eye Joe_ , when she suddenly reaches forward and turns the volume mixer down low. He tears his eyes away from the road momentarily, his brow furrowing slightly in concern, but she’s just smiling at him.

“Hey, I just wanted to say thank you again,” she says slowly. “For, you know, coming to this wedding with me. You really didn’t have to tag along, but I’m really—really glad that you are, so, um, thanks.”

“Anytime, Jess,” he tells her, and he means it. He’s in deep enough now that he’s pretty sure he’d jump off a roof if she told him to…and yeah, he really needs to get a handle on these thoughts before he does something entirely stupid and inevitably screws everything up.

* * *

Jess casually loops her arm through his as they start walking into the wedding venue, past the brightly coloured sign that boldly reads ‘Genzlinger Wedding!!!' (three exclamation points and all), pointing out the various people she knows. He tries his best to listen, he really does, but he’s never been great at faces and names, and the solid weight of her arm on his is incredibly distracting.

“That’s Paul, the groom,” she informs him as she leads him towards a bench near the back, gesturing ahead, though that fact was maybe one of the only things he _had_ managed to figure out, considering there’s just one guy in the room who is standing right at the front under an unmissable wedding arch. It looks like the guy is full-blown crying too because his face is all scrunched up, his features distorted, but hey, it is his wedding day; it’s kind of a once in a lifetime event, he guesses (well, unless, you know, he ends up getting divorced but that’s—that’s kinda depressing. Miller, don’t project those thoughts onto the poor guy.)

“We used to work together when I was still, um, when I was still teaching. He’s really, really sweet, and I’m so happy for him.”

Nick nods, settles himself down next to Jess, close enough that her arm is pressed up against his. He can’t say he particularly enjoys weddings – like, at all – because they just serve to remind him that Caroline dumped him and that he hasn’t had much luck with women as of late, so he decides to watch Jess watch the ceremony instead. It’s immediately clear to him that Jess _loves_ weddings; she’s tearing up before the bride has even walked through the door, beaming up at the front as the band starts playing. She notices him staring at her then, turning her head slightly, a puzzled expression on her face.

“What are you looking at, Miller?”

Nick shrugs, returns his gaze back to the front (where the groom is loudly sobbing now, hard enough that it’s almost uncomfortable to watch, but also, in a weird way, makes him wish he had someone in his life who he wanted to marry _so damn badly_ ), the hint of a smile twisting at his lips.

“Nothing,” he says.

( _You_.)

The bride walks in then, and it’s not so much her walking in that draws his attention, but Jess’ audible gasp from next to him and her (not-so-quiet) murmuring about her dress, but as soon as he lays his eyes on her, he does a double-take, rubs at his eyes a little. Yeah, so, the girl is obviously not Jess, because Jess is currently sharing this very bench with him and she’s very much not Asian, but the girl’s also…not _not_ Jess. There are definitely some similarities between the two, down to the glasses and the way she’s currently pushing them up as she walks down the aisle. He squints at the bride, and then at Jess, tilts his head slightly in curiosity and opens his mouth to voice the burning questions in his head, but Jess is already squatting at his arm.

“Don’t say it, Nick,” she whispers, pulling a face as if she knows exactly what he’s thinking. “We, um, we dated for a month, decided that we were much better off as friends, and then he started dating Jenn. I’m happy for them, they’re _so_ in love, and she’s—she’s sweet.”

“Yeah,” he whispers back, raises an eyebrow, “sweet and _looks so much like ya_.”

Jess swats him on the arm again, gives him a mock glare, but he just bites his lip hard to hold back a burst of laughter at the look of indignation on her face (which, uh, who even is he and what happened to Nick Miller? He’s not the kind of guy who _enjoys_ wedding ceremonies; he’s the kind of guy who only attends weddings for the free bar, gets wasted, and—yeah. That’s pretty much all he does at weddings.)

* * *

The ceremony involves a whole lot of tears, mainly from the groom and bride themselves, to the extent that at one point Nick’s seriously worried that neither of them are going to be able to pull themselves together enough to say ‘I do’ and they’re going to end up sitting here watching them cry for _hours_. They eventually manage to get through it though, and by this point, Jess is crying too, her eyes wide and wistful as she watches them kiss on stage.

“I love _love_!” Jess exclaims to him brightly once people start shifting from ceremony-mode to reception-mode, everyone slowly standing up and shuffling to gather their belongings together. “Wasn’t that beautiful?”

“Uh, yeah,” he replies, gives a shrug. It was nice enough, sure, but he wouldn’t exactly describe it as _beautiful_. Way too many tears and snot and emotions for that.

Jess squints at him a bit, frowns.

“You hated it, didn’t you?”

He shakes his head and purses his lips as he stands up from the bench, brushing himself off.

“No, that’s not it,” he replies, running a hand through his hair. “I’m just not a big fan of weddings in general. If I ever get married, it’s going to be at a bar with a maximum of five people there. No crying, no dancing, plenty of alcohol. I’ll just…get it done and then get everyone drunk.”

Jess blinks, gapes a little as if she can’t quite believe what he’s saying, and then she just chuckles lightly at him.

“Very romantic, Miller,” she says, reaching up and patting him on the cheek affectionately, laughing a bit harder as he grumbles at her actions. “…but, this is not your wedding, so later, we’re going to take our shoes off and dance our faces off.”

He baulks. Jess doesn't notice.

“I should warn you though, I do the chicken dance differently. I know that it usually goes like _this,_ but instead of doing claps, I like to do a peck because it’s more realistic—”

“—I’m not dancing,” he interrupts, as seriously as he knows how to, frowning in horror. If he’d known that he might have to dance at this wedding, he’d have thought twice about offering to accompany Jess to it. He’s never liked dancing and he’s never been good at it, and just thinking about having to dance _in front of people_ makes his palms feel uncomfortably damp.

“Yes, you are,” she replies, slowly crossing her arms as she stares up at him, eyes determined.

“Nope. I don’t dance. My body doesn’t work like that; I’m from that town in Footloose.”

“Oh, come on, Nick—”

“—It’s not happening, _Jessica_. Drop it.”

Jess frowns slightly, then, gives him a small nod.

“Fine, no dancing,” she agrees, though she pulls a face at him as she says the words, the corners of her lips slanting downwards, and it’s _almost_ enough for him to go back on his word, but not quite. “We’ll just…sit at a table and drink wine.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he says, tilting his head towards the door. “Lead the way.”

* * *

As it happens, it’s not Jess’ ex that they bump into first but _his_. He’s sitting at a table with Jess, wine in hand, when he suddenly spots a familiar head two tables away. He freezes, mid-sip, squints, and then when she turns slightly, it confirms his suspicions. Caroline is here, at this very wedding. Caroline, who he hasn’t seen since the day she dumped him. Caroline, who he cried over for four months straight. Caroline, who Schmidt swore he would kill the next time he saw her.

“Nick? Is everything okay?”

Nick closes his eyes briefly, forces himself to swallow down the bitter taste in his throat, tries to ignore the sudden churning in his stomach. Jess is staring at him in concern as he slowly opens his eyes again and, yeah, that is definitely Caroline sitting over there and he’s not sure he trusts himself not to end the night in tears. He was pretty sure that he was over her, but he also didn’t think he’d ever get the chance to see her again.

“Nick, what’s going on?”

He slowly refocuses his gaze on Jess, gives her a weak smile.

“I, uh, my ex is here,” he tells her, gesturing in Caroline’s direction, as he reminds himself how to breathe. You can do this, Miller; she dumped you, and you’re doing just fine.

Jess’ face crumples slightly at his words and her eyes momentarily drift in the direction he pointed in, but then she reaches out and places a hand on either side of his face, forcing him to look at her.

“You don’t need to talk to her if you don’t want to,” she tells him gently, her fingers digging into his cheeks ever so slightly, and he makes himself focus on the pressure to distract himself from spiralling. “We can move to the back, hide out in the corner, drink more wine.”

He takes a deep breath, squeezes his eyes shut for a second, then reaches up to carefully pry Jess’ hands away from his face. Things with Caroline were great once, great enough that a tiny part of him thought that they might end up getting married at a wedding like this one day, and he doesn’t know where or how things went wrong. He’d been in the middle of looking for apartments with her when she’d suddenly dumped him out of the blue, and it had started off a whole chain reaction which ended up in him dropping out of law school and reinventing himself (well, kinda. The dropping out of law school part he’d managed, the reinventing he’s still working on). He doesn’t _resent_ what happened, because dropping out of law school is maybe the best decision he’s made in a long time, but he doesn’t understand any of it and how it all fell apart.

“Nick?”

Jess is eyeing him in concern, her brow furrowed. He realises then that his fingers are still gripped around her wrists and he lets go, shoving both of his hands in his pockets instead. Maybe Jess was right the other night, and maybe the only way for him to completely move on with his life is to find out why Caroline dumped him. Closure’s a good thing, right? He’s pretty sure that’s what all the protagonists in the stupidly cheesy rom-com movies that Schmidt sometimes forces them both to watch are always harping on about.

“I’m good,” he tells Jess eventually, then gets to his feet before he has a chance to second guess himself. “I think I just need to talk to her…about everything.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

Nick shakes his head. This whole Caroline situation is complicated and awkward, and he’d rather not have Jess caught up in it because he doesn’t want her to realise how much of a mess he is when he isn’t hiding behind a laptop screen or sharing cupcakes with her.

“No, I, uh, I think I’m good, maybe just…hover nearby,” he says, and then glances down at her as he suddenly remembers the reason he’s at this wedding in the first place. “Are _you_ going to be okay?”

Jess nods, smiles at him brightly, though there’s still a tinge of concern in her eyes.

“Let me know if you need anything,” she says, her eyes scanning over his face intently. “Shout the word ‘apricot’ and I’ll be right over.”

He frowns, squints at her.

“Apricot?”

“Yeah,” she tells him, then leans forward in her seat a little, taps her chin twice, “that can be our secret code.”

“Okay, but, ‘ _apricot’_? How am I supposed to use that in a normal conversation?”

Jess blinks at him as if she has no idea what he’s talking about, and he’s not quite sure why he’s still standing here talking to Jess about damn _apricots_ when Caroline is within walking distance. It’s just—it’s hard to tear himself away from Jess, because she’s so weirdly captivating, even when all this _ridiculous_ stuff is spilling out of her mouth.

“What do you mean? Everyone uses the word ‘apricot’—actually, wait, we might need to pick a different code word: I use ‘apricot’ too much in my normal life.”

“Why do ya use ‘apricot’ so much?!”

Jess crosses her arms, narrows her eyes at him.

“What am I supposed to call them? Sweet tangy balls?”

“Don’t ever call them sweet tangy balls, _Jessica_ ,” he retorts, pulling a face, then softens his features as he notices the slight furrow in her brow. “Hey, I’m going to be fine, okay? Promise.”

Jess frowns a little harder, and yeah, this isn't exactly the ideal situation for him – far from it – but the genuine concern in her eyes makes him feel like he can do this. He’s going to walk over there, have a mature talk with Caroline, and then he’s going to come back and spend the rest of the night hanging out with Jess.

Simple.

He slowly turns towards Caroline’s direction, his mouth going a little dry as he realises that Caroline’s spotted him too and is now waving and beckoning him over. It’s now or never, Miller. Get a grip on yourself, for God’s sake. He takes two steps forward, before he glances back at Jess, who is watching him attentively from her seat. She shoots him an encouraging look as he meets her gaze, mouths the words _apricots! apricots!_ at him, and he finds himself smiling back. He’s not sure what makes him say the next words that come out of his mouth, but it’s probably some mixture of adrenaline at seeing Caroline, of all people, at this damn wedding and Jess’ willingness to help him even though she has no idea what happened between them.

“Save me a dance?”

Jess blinks in surprise, the hint of a smile lifting at her lips.

“I thought you said you didn’t dance,” she says.

“I don’t,” he replies curtly as he rolls up his sleeves, “but I’ll make an exception just this one time.”


	7. revelations and dancing

Being face-to-face with Caroline again is jarring and extremely confusing. On the one hand, it’s painfully familiar, enough that it makes his heart flip in his chest; she’s looking at him like she always used to, dead in the eye, unflinching, and he can smell the familiar scent of her perfume wafting over him… but, on the other hand, it’s completely unfamiliar, in a way that makes him oddly nervous, even though Caroline probably knows him better than anyone else on this planet does (save for, maybe, Schmidt). There’s a small, but not insignificant, part of him that wants to reach out and grab her hands and go back to the way things were, but she— _she dumped him_ , and she’s not his girlfriend, and he’s—he’s moved on.

Hasn't he?

“How have you been, Nick?” Caroline asks, and she’s looking at him as if she genuinely wants to know… and maybe she does. She hadn’t been mad at him when they broke up and they hadn’t gotten into a fight or anything, she just—she just showed up one day, told him that she was breaking up with him because it ‘wasn’t working anymore’, and then she’d left.

“Alright,” he replies, as casually as he can, giving her a shrug. He’s alright _now_ , sure, but it took a hell of a long time for him to get to this point post-breakup and he'd rather not get into that. "You?”

“Good,” she tells him, with a small smile, “actually, really good.”

There’s a moment of silence then, both of them just staring at each other and Nick can feel his back getting steadily damper, but he doesn’t know what to say or do around Caroline anymore. It’s unnerving and he feels weirdly on edge, and maybe she feels the same way, because in the end, they both jump to speak at exactly the same time—

“—How’s your writing going?”

“—So, uh, how do you know the groom? Or…the bride?”

Caroline gives him an odd look at that, furrows her brow, scoffs a little.

“Nick, you had to have known I was going to be here,” she tells him, and he frowns in confusion, not quite understanding what she’s getting at. She fixes him with a steely gaze, slowly crosses her arms. “Nick, are you serious? You’ve _met_ Jenn; she was in my sorority and we went to a bunch of parties with her.”

He frowns a little harder, tries to remember, but he honestly has no recollection of meeting either the groom _or_ the bride. He’d hated being dragged to all the sorority parties by Caroline and he’d only gone because she’d make him a deal that if he went, she’d spend the next day watching the game with him. He had spent most of those parties standing as close to the keg as possible, drinking the night away, so…yeah, there’s a very real possibility that, coupled with the fact that he’s awful at remembering faces in general, Caroline’s right and he _has_ met the bride and he just can’t remember. He’s not that guy anymore though: he’s older, and wiser, and (a tad) more responsible.

“You haven’t changed one bit,” Caroline says, with a small shake of her head, and she doesn’t look particularly mad at him, as such, but more…disheartened, whatever that means.

Nick tilts his head, opens his mouth to apologise because this is already going wrong and they’re less than a minute in, when his eyes drift slightly and he spots Jess out of the corner of his eye. She’s still sitting at the same table that he left her at, but she’s not alone. Very, very _not alone_. He frowns, suddenly distracted from the conversation he’s currently involved in and tunes out the sound of Caroline’s voice, even though he knows that doing so makes him a total jerk. …but, at the same time, the only reason he’s at this wedding in the first place is to be a ‘good friend’ to Jess so he should at least see that through, right? He squints at Jess until she swims into view a bit better and waves a hand to try and get her attention.

(“Seriously, Nick? You’re waving at someone else right in the middle of us having a conversation? Have you been listening to a single word that I’ve been saying?”)

“Apricot?” He mouths silently as Jess locks eyes with him, watches intently as she bites her bottom lip, then gives him the slightest of nods.

Nick nods back, runs a hand through his hair, then turns to face Caroline, his back getting embarrassingly damp at the prospect of what he’s about to do and the associated consequences.

“Hey, Caroline, I, uh, I gotta go help a friend…but I _do_ want to talk to ya, I swear,” he says.

Caroline’s now looking at him with a distinctly unimpressed expression on her face, eyes blazing. It’s the trademark Caroline _mad face_ , and he used to hate being on the receiving end of it, mostly because nine times out of ten, he had absolutely no clue what he had done wrong. This time, he’s fully aware of what he’s done and what he’s about to do, and yeah, he deserves it; he knows he does. The thing is, on the one hand, being a good friend to Jess means that he should go over there and help her out, but, on the other hand, being a good… _something_ to Caroline, means that he should stay here and talk everything out. No matter what he does, he’s going to end up upsetting someone and that really sucks, because honestly? He’s trying really, really hard to do the right thing.

Caroline continues glaring at him, clearly pissed (and for good reason), and so Nick does the only thing that feels marginally okay in the moment and leans forward a little, speaking as sincerely as he can.

“Look, I know that this is a very shitty thing for me to do, but I really do have to help out a friend. I promised her I would.” He says, shoots her an apologetic look. “I’ll be right back, I swear, and I’ll buy you a drink and we can talk properly. No distractions.”

Caroline closes her eyes briefly, but her features relax just a touch when she opens them again.

“Sure, Nick,” she tells him, and he distinctly feels like he’s screwed everything up again even though she’s not wearing her mad face anymore; no, this is her _disappointed_ face, and he might hate this one even more. “Go.”

“I’ll be right back, I swear to God,” he repeats, mimes crossing his heart, and then gets up from the table and walks back to Jess.

* * *

Jess is sitting face-to-face with _her_ ex, and he can tell that she’s nervous because he can see her rapidly tapping her foot on the floor as he approaches. He slides in the seat next to her, ignoring the fact that her ex immediately glares at him, leaning forward, close enough that he’s on the verge of invading his personal space.

“You’re the guy from the coffee shop, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Nick answers, staring right back at him, trying his best to appear unfazed.

He remembers Jess’ earlier comments about this guy’s hair then and it makes him squint at the guy’s head a little, but... he doesn't know what she's seeing because it really looks like very normal, very boring…hair. There's just, uh, lots of it, and okay, maybe it looks like it would feel _marginally_ softer than his, but only marginally—and hey, Miller? This is not a great time to be thinking about touching another man’s hair, and, actually… why the hell are you thinking about touching another man’s hair in the first place? What has Schmidt done to you?

Jess’ ex slowly crosses his arms, shifting his gaze to land on Jess, then moves it back to him, his brow furrowing.

“Jess, are you _dating_ this guy?”

“We’re not—”

“—Yeah, buddy, she is,” he cuts in, smoothly speaking over Jess, sliding an arm around the back of her chair. He’s not entirely sure why those exact words slip out of his mouth, but it’s too late, and he decides to commit wholeheartedly to the make-believe, even though now both Jess’ ex _and_ Jess herself are staring up at him, eyebrows raised. “I’m her boyfriend, so I’d appreciate it if you backed the hell off.”

“You’re really dating this guy, Jess? Seriously?”

Jess shoots him an unreadable look, and then moves her gaze back to her ex and gives him a slow, careful shrug of her shoulders.

“Look, Jess, just come home so we can talk, okay? I’m worried about you.”

There’s a pause, and then Nick realises he’s clenching his fists hard enough that his nails are digging uncomfortably into the skin of his palm because, seriously, who even is this guy? He cheated on her, but he still claims to be _worried_ about her? What an absolute jerk. He forces himself to take a breath, because, yeah, he’s mad, in a very visceral way, and he doesn’t even know the guy, but it’s no use and more words are spilling out before he can stop them:

“You know what? I don’t like you, man. I don’t like anything about ya, and I’m not afraid to—”

“—Nick, I’ve got this,” Jess interrupts, her voice full of determination, eyes blazing, and he falls silent, though he doesn’t remove his arm from the back of her chair. “It’s over, Spencer. I spent six years trying to figure you out, but all you are is a guy with really beautiful hair. I’m happy that you cheated on me; really, _thank you_ , because if you hadn’t, I would have married you at a wedding just like this one and then you would have hurt me all over again. And yeah, I was scared to start over and I didn’t know what to do, but—but, um, Nick is _great_ , okay? So, it’s over, it’s been over for months, and I need my stuff back.”

Her ex stares at the two of them, frowning hard as he digests Jess’ words, but then a look of finality crosses his face and he nods, just once.

“Fine,” he bites out, and Nick cowers slightly because he swears that the guy is thinking about punching him right in the face (though, honestly? He kinda thinks that he might actually stand a chance against this guy in a fight and that’s really saying something). “I’ll pack up your stuff; you can come and collect it next weekend.”

He gets up after that, leaves without a second glance back, and then it’s just him and Jess alone at the table. It’s silent for a while, Jess just giving him a look that he can’t quite make sense of, a multitude of different emotions seemingly flashing in her eyes.

“You’re not mad at me, right?” Nick asks, starting to panic as the silence draws on, because she’s usually so open and easy to read, and this is new for him. “I know I shouldn’t have just thrown the boyfriend thing out there without asking, but you looked like you needed a way out and you said you were over him so I just figured it’d be the easiest thing—”

Jess smiles then, shaking her head, and he lets out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding, relaxes a bit in his seat.

“No, no, I’m not mad at you,” she says, giving him that unreadable look again. “Yeah, that was unexpected, but it was also kind of…kind of _brilliant_ , Nick. I’ve wanted to say all that stuff to him for the longest time, but I haven’t had the courage to do it until now. So, thank you, really.”

Nick smiles, glad that he’s managed to do something right in the past hour, nudging at her shoulder gently, just once.

“Well, I am _great_. That’s what ya said, right? ‘Nick is great’?”

“I don’t remember saying that at all,” Jess replies immediately, quirking her lips slightly, before her expression turns more serious as she fixes her gaze on him again. “Hey, I’m sorry for interrupting your talk with your ex. I didn’t mean to, really, Spencer just showed up out of nowhere and I panicked, I guess.”

Nick gives her a wry smile, shrugs his shoulders.

“It’s cool, don’t worry about it,” he says nonchalantly, then takes a deep breath, “but…I should probably get back over there before she murders me.”

* * *

He heads back over to Caroline, buys her the drink he’d promised, and then, before they can get caught up in a silly semi-argument again, he decides to just put all his cards out on the table.

“Caroline, so, here's the thing: I have to ask you something so that I don't end up as an old man filled with regret one day,” he starts, watching as she frowns slightly, stares him right in the eye. She wordlessly tilts her head, waiting for him to continue, and he takes a deep breath before asking the question that's been on the forefront of his mind since he's sat down with her:

“Why did you dump me?”

Caroline blinks, raises an eyebrow in surprise, clearly taken aback by this turn of events.

“Um, okay. Are we doing this here, like, now?”

“Yeah,” he says, and now that he’s asked the question, he realises that he really does want to hear the answer. “Why did you dump me?”

“Um… Honestly, I… I didn’t even realise that you cared about me until we broke up,” she confesses slowly, twisting her hands in her lap, looking more uncomfortable than he's ever seen her.

He purses his lips, runs a hand through his hair. It's not the answer that he was expecting to hear, and he’s not entirely sure what to make of it, and his head is spinning with a million thoughts all at once, but at least—at least he knows now

“Okay,” he replies, “ _okay_.”

* * *

It’s a while before he catches up with Jess again, partly because he ends up talking to Caroline for a bit longer until things genuinely seem to be relatively _normal_ between them, but mostly because when he gets back to the table they were sitting at, Jess isn’t there anymore. He scans the room to try and figure out where she is, and he ultimately spots her right in the middle of the dance-floor, dancing with some guy, and—she’s laughing, and smiling, and so he doesn’t try to get her attention.

Instead, he just sits himself down at their table, watches her dance for a few minutes, and gets lost in his own thoughts, rubbing a hand across his face. He’s honestly surprised by Caroline’s answer about their breakup because he did care about her, he really did. He wouldn’t have cried over her for four months straight if he didn’t. …but, yet, maybe she has a point. The more he allows himself to revisit their relationship, the more he remembers not just the good stuff and the very bad stuff, but all the stuff in between. He remembers being so focused on trying to get through law school and dealing with Schmidt’s antics that he’d ended up forgetting multiple birthdays, anniversaries, apparently the _bride_ of this very wedding, and a bunch of other ‘ _I care about ya’_ , good boyfriend stuff. It wasn’t so much of a memory thing, but more that he was always half-expecting her to come to her senses and leave, just like his dad had done multiple times, so he’d always had one foot out of the door, and then—and then she did leave him, and he was alone (well, ‘alone’, as in, ‘just him and Schmidt’, which in its own way, was just as terrifying), and it hurt like hell.

“Are you okay?”

He feels a tap on his shoulder, and he glances up to find Jess sitting next to him, looking at him in concern. Nick shrugs, slowly lets out a breath, runs a hand through his hair.

“Well, I, uh, I took your advice and I found out why she dumped me,” he says, staring straight ahead, his mind still struggling to process his thoughts. “She said she didn’t realise that I cared about her until we broke up…and you know what? She’s probably right, and this is all—this is all on me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not…” he trails off, rubs a hand over his face, struggling to find the right words to express the complicated emotions that are going on in his head. “Look, I don’t like talking about my…feelings, never have, and I’m not good at, I don’t know, _caring about people_. Truth is, Jess, you don’t know me well enough to know this, but I’m kinda—I’m a little broken.”

Jess shakes her head at him, gently nudges at his shoulder.

"That's not true, Nick. You're good at caring about people,” she says, nudging at him insistently until he reluctantly turns his head to meet her gaze. “You wouldn’t be at this wedding in the first place if you weren't.”

He tilts his head, runs his hand through his hair again, licks his lips as he considers her words.

“Nick, you’re not broken. You’re fine. You're good,” Jess tells him sincerely, one hand gripping his arm.

He silently stares back at her for a few seconds, as if the longer he stares, the more her words will become his reality, because he desperately wants to believe her. She squeezes his arm once before she lets go of him, pasting a bright smile onto her face and putting on a jaunty accent.

“I believe I said that you were _great_ earlier, and I’ll have you know that I don’t throw that word around lightly.”

He gives her a weak smile at her attempt to lighten the mood, goes with it.

“So, you _do_ remember saying that,” he says slowly, and then decides to change the subject entirely before things get too deep and too dark and he ends up scaring her off and messing everything up. “Who were you dancing with just now? You looked like you were having fun.”

Jess grins, though there’s still a hint of apprehension in her eyes as she scans his face.

“His name’s Sam, I just met him,” she tells him, and then fans herself with one hand, gives him a wink. “He’s hot, right?”

Nick pulls a face, frowns, his heart clenching painfully in his chest. Wrong choice of subject, Miller. _Really, really wrong_.

“Uh, yeah, sure, I guess,” he says non-committedly as he swings his head around to squint at the guy in question and…okay, he _supposes_ the guy is very tall, with above average handsomeness, and he has a decent head of hair on him…and yeah, he’ll admit that they looked pretty good dancing together on the dance-floor. Kinda. Maybe.

Jess gives him an odd look then, expression unreadable, but before Nick can question it any further, she gets to her feet and holds out her arm to him.

“Come on, Nick,” she says, as she suddenly starts tugging him upright and dragging him towards the middle of the dance-floor, “you promised me a dance.”

“Jess, wait, I wasn’t kidding, I really don’t dance. Let’s not—let’s not go _right in the middle_ , I’m begging ya,” he protests, but Jess just turns and grins brightly at him over her shoulder, continuing to tug him forward.

“It’s easy,” she says, and then takes a step backwards until there’s a space between their bodies, raising her hands up in the air. “Just copy me.”

Nick slowly crosses his arms, watching in trepidation as she starts squeezing her fingers together, and then her elbows and wait—is this the damn _chicken dance_ that she’d given him a quick taste of earlier? It’s not that he particularly objects to the dance itself (because, well, he steadfastly objects to _all_ types of dance by the same amount; he’s a fair, unjudgmental kind of guy), but it’s clearly very inappropriate for the music that’s currently playing in the background.

_When you're close to me  
I can feel your heartbeat  
I can hear you breathing in my ear_

They’re surrounded by couples slowly swaying to some cheesy song about _love_ and here they are, right in the middle, Jess miming pecks and flapping wings as if she doesn’t have a care in the world. She doesn’t care, she really doesn’t, and she’s grinning up at him widely, eyes sparkling in the light, and she’s really—she’s really something else. He can’t help but laugh then because the situation’s just so _ridiculous_ , and he can’t quite believe what he’s watching or how he’s even able to laugh after all the Caroline drama that just happened. Jess looks like she’s having the best time in the world though so Nick takes a breath, pushes all his self-consciousness and anxieties to the back of his head for the time being, tunes out all the people around them and focuses his attention on Jess and tries to copy her movements as best as he can.

“You’re a natural dancer, Miller,” Jess tells him, though she’s laughing loudly as she says it, a teasing glint in her eyes. “Seriously, did you go to dance school as well as law school?”

“Yeah, yeah, very funny, Day,” he grumbles back, rolls his eyes a little, but he doesn’t stop miming her movements, even adding in his own ‘moves’ (if you can call them that) until she’s forced to stop dancing because she’s laughing too hard at him.

_Wouldn't you agree?  
Baby, you and me  
Got a groovy kind of love_

* * *

(“So…how was the wedding with _Nick?"_ Cece asks over the phone the next day, and Jess pulls a face at her obvious emphasis of his name, her voice pitched all flirtatious.

“Don’t do that. Don’t say his name like that,” she replies, brow furrowed, shaking her head a little even though she knows that Cece can’t actually see her. “You’re not getting in my head and ruining everything.”

“Jess, come on, you can’t just be friends with him. What, you don’t think he’s thought about sleeping with you?”

“No! You think everyone wants to sleep with everyone all the time, but that’s just not true. We’re friends, that’s it,” she says adamantly, and she truly, honestly means it.

She’s not saying Nick's not _attractive_ , because he is, in that scruffy, rumpled, permanent bed-head kinda way, and he’s all funny, and sweet, and soft under all that grumpiness. There are moments when he'll look at her so intensely, like she's the only person in the entire world, where she'll let herself think _what if?_ , but she only allows those thoughts to stick around for a few seconds at most because… he’s her friend and she’s always put her friends in one box, boyfriends in another. Everything in between is just too…messy, and she hates it when things are messy. No, things are great right now and she's happy, so why risk that? Why risk him?

“Okay, but just answer this one question: did you have fun with him? You did, didn’t you?”)


	8. frozen peas and interrogations

He’s woken up by Schmidt a few days later at the crack of dawn, and it’s honestly becoming such a regular occurrence at this point that he makes a mental note to try and DIY a locking mechanism onto his bedroom door. (He’s _pretty_ confident that he could fashion one out of a few empty soda cans and paperclips. He thinks he remembers seeing a YouTube tutorial on it, actually. Maybe even several tutorials. Internet's a great place these days.)

“Nick, are you awake?”

“I am now,” he grumbles, sliding one arm over his eyes in a feeble attempt to block out the light. “What do you want?”

Schmidt saunters in, sits himself down on his bed (“Schmidt, what are you— _go away_!”), patiently – and _annoyingly_ – waiting until he’s stopped protesting before he speaks.

“We have to start planning.”

“Planning…what?” Nick asks, though he’s not entirely sure he really wants to know the answer, not if it means that he’s going to be woken up this early.

Schmidt scoffs at him, rolls his eyes, makes an attempt to pull him out of his _own bed_ , but he successfully fights him off.

“Nick, it’s your birthday this weekend,” Schmidt informs him flatly as if he doesn’t know, which—actually, yeah, he’d kinda forgotten. He doesn’t really get why people celebrate birthdays, if he’s honest, and he’s been busy with…other things lately. You know, writing, unexpected encounters with his ex-girlfriend, hanging out with Jess at the coffee shop...

“So?”

“We’re having a party,” Schmidt says matter-of-factly, and Nick can tell from the look on his face that Schmidt’s not really giving him an option here, but he’s probably already planned the entire thing. He'd bet five dollars that Schmidt started planning his birthday party at _least_ three months ago. Maybe four.

Nick sighs deeply, reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t want a party,” he tells him, and it’s the truth.

He doesn’t mind parties in general, but Schmidt-organised parties are never enjoyable. They’re always way too big, involving people being lit on _fire_ and the odd kidnapped tiger, and they never end well. He’d much rather spend his birthday by himself, drinking beer at a bar or watching a game.

Schmidt narrows his eyes at him, licks his lips calculatingly, and Nick lets out another weary sigh, sensing that things are about to go from being mildly unpleasant to _very, very bad_. Honest to God, and he’s not proud of it, but Schmidt really terrifies the hell out of him sometimes.

“Jess said she’d come.”

Nick blinks, suddenly wide awake, and it’s honestly slightly pathetic, really, that even the slightest mention of her name can do this to him. Miller, you’re in real trouble and you really need to get a grip before you do something stupid.

“Wait, you talked to Jess? When, uh, when was this?”

Schmidt shrugs, reaches over to ruffle his hair, and he grumbles and waves his hands away.

“I talk to Jess all the time,” he says, with a shrug, “you know, in the mornings when normal people are awake.”

“Since when?!”

Schmidt grins knowingly at him then, reaches out to ruffle his hair again, and ugh, Schmidt can be the worse sometimes.

“Don’t worry, Nick, I’ve got my eye set on Cecelia,” Schmidt tells him, ignoring his protests (“What would I be worried about? I’m not—I’m not _worried_ about anything!”), then leans in conspiratorially, almost looks like he’s about to take his shirt off or something equally disturbing. “Have you seen her body? She’s a straight up ten. Eleven, maybe. Twelve?”

“ _Jar_ , Schmidt.”

Schmidt pulls a face, slides off his bed and fishes in his pocket for some cash, but pauses at the doorway, glancing back at him.

“So…can I put your name on the guest list? Party’s on Saturday evening, I’ll message you the details.”

Nick blinks.

“Why wouldn’t my name be on the guest list, Schmidt? Isn’t this supposed to be _my_ birthday party?”

“Okay, so you agree that we’re having a party?”

“—No, no, I’m not agreeing to anything,” he immediately cuts in, but Schmidt’s already half-smirking at him, looking annoyingly pleased with himself. He lets out a sigh, closes his eyes briefly, curses the day when he met Schmidt for the first time and somehow let him worm his way into his life.

“Okay, fine. Fine. But, it has to be small. I swear to God, Schmidt, it _has to be small_.”

* * *

Nick makes his way down to the coffee shop several hours later once he’s had a shower and woken up a bit more. He reaches for his hoodie on reflex, but at the last minute, decides to actually make an effort for once and pull a shirt on, and just about manages to convince himself that it has absolutely nothing to do with this stupid crush that he’s developed.

The thing is, since the wedding, he’s been finding it harder and harder to stop thinking about Jess, because she’s beautiful and funny and quirky, and just… _Jess_. It’s not limited solely to Sleeping Nick anymore either; sometimes he’ll be doing something completely innocent like getting himself some water from the kitchen and he’ll instinctively look down at the side of the cup as if he’s hoping to see a fricking _turtle_ drawn on it and he’ll actually feel a pang of disappointment when there isn’t one there. It's bizarre, really, because in normal circumstances, he would have been holed up in his room, spiralling over having seen Caroline and the revelation that she'd broken up with him because she didn't think he cared, but this time, he's perfectly fine. Weirdly fine. He knows he's going to need to revisit what Caroline said to him at some point, but not now. He can't explain it, but it's like, the more time he spends around Jess, the less time he spends reliving the mistakes of his past and everything just seems less foggy; clearer. Him and Caroline just weren't right together and that's...okay. The only problem is, well, he's pretty sure that Jess doesn’t have the same feelings for him that he's been harbouring for her, and what he's doing right now is borderline unhealthy and a tad obsessive. So, yeah. There’s that.

Jess joins him on his table during her break, glancing him up and down, a slight look of surprise on her face as she sees what he's wearing.

“You look nice,” she says approvingly as she passes him half of her cupcake, and his heart does a flip, even though he knows that she doesn’t mean it _like that_. She’s probably just proud of him for wearing something other than his hoodie and, you know, being nice because she's Jess and she's nice to everyone.

“Why didn’t you tell me it was your birthday this weekend?”

Nick shrugs.

“I don’t really celebrate my birthday,” he says, watching in slight amusement as Jess’ eyes widen as if she’s morally offended by what he’s just said. “You, uh, you don’t have to come to the party if you don’t want to. Knowing Schmidt, it’s probably going to end with at least one person being driven to the hospital.”

Jess chuckles, shakes her head.

“I’ll be there,” she promises. “Besides, I kinda think Schmidt might kill me if I don’t turn up with Cece. He made me swear on my firstborn child that I’d bring her. He said he, um, had something…up his sleeve?”

Nick grimaces, rubs the back of his neck. He’s known Schmidt for a long time, enough to know that nothing good ever comes out of Schmidt’s plans. He just hopes that he’s not the one that ends up in hospital this time.

“What’s your favourite type of cake?”

“Oh, you don’t have to—”

“It’s your birthday, Nick. You're getting a cake,” Jess insists, smiling brightly at him, rubbing her hands together.

“What if—what if I don’t like cake?”

She raises an eyebrow at him, slowly crosses her arms, and yeah, okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly the greatest lie he’s ever told.

“You're currently eating half of my cupcake,” she states flatly, and he glances down at the table out of reflex, eyes landing on the offending item, and he'll admit it: that is a very valid point.

* * *

The party is…surprisingly tamer than he expected, but that’s partly because he successfully hacks into Schmidt’s email account the day of the event and manages to cancel the orders for fire breathers, strippers and _party buses_. Schmidt refuses to talk to him for a good three hours after that, even when people start filing into the loft, but then Jess and Cece turn up at the door, an unnecessarily large cake in their hands, and he's suddenly all sunshine and smiles again. He instantly leads Cece into the loft, reaching out and trying to grab her hands (which, to her credit, she manages to avoid), and then it’s just…Jess, looking up at him, a soft smile on her face.

“Happy birthday, Miller," she says, and then, tilts her head a little, "are you going to invite me in?”

He swallows, nods, shifts from the doorway slightly to let her pass. Jess looks around curiously as she walks in, her eyes widening as she takes in the scene. It’s kinda loud in here, music blaring out from various speakers that he didn't even know they owned, and there’s _a lot_ of people here, most of whom he doesn’t know and he’s pretty sure don’t know him. He’s not sure who Schmidt was planning this party for – well, okay, he has a pretty good idea, based on the fact that he's about ten seconds away from whipping off his shirt for Cece – but it certainly wasn’t for him.

“I, uh, I don’t really know any of these people,” he admits, scratching the back of his neck, suddenly uncomfortable, then pulls a face at himself, because seriously, Miller? You’re not exactly doing yourself any favours here.

“Well,” Jess says slowly, nudging him slightly with her shoulder, sliding the cake onto the kitchen countertop, “you know me, don't you?"

In the end, he’s immensely grateful that Schmidt had the initiative to invite Jess to this party he didn’t want (even if he clearly did it for selfish reasons) because at least it means that he has someone to talk to all night; at Schmidt’s parties, he usually ends up drinking alone in the corner, feeling kinda like an idiot but also not really caring one bit. He’s never liked Schmidt’s friends; they’re all just so loud, annoying, weirdly high-pitched and, _ugh_. Schmidt's not the same when he's around them either, literally tripping over himself to try and impress them, and it's uncomfortable for him to watch, because, honestly? Schmidt might be a pain in the ass most days, but he's loyal and he cares, and these guys don't deserve a second of his time.

Jess doesn’t seem at all bothered by the situation she's walked into, trying her best to get him to dance along with the music, but he point-blank refuses because, yeah, while he did that once and it was sorta nice, he’s going to need a lot more alcohol in him before he agrees to do it again. (It's one thing dancing in a room full of strangers, but it's an entirely different thing dancing in a room full of strangers and Schmidt. He knows for sure that Schmidt would never let him live it down and, yeah, not happening.) Jess pulls a face at him, but eventually relents because _it is your birthday_ , sliding herself down on the floor beside him and starting to tell him random stories instead. They’re nothing exceptional, just the odd titbits from her life, but he finds himself laughing, and grinning, and feeling weirdly warm, and he's pretty sure that only a tiny part of that is alcohol-induced.

(“Once, when I was still, um, living with Spencer, I called the landlord to try and fix some things in our apartment and he thought I was inviting him over for a threesome—”

“—Wait, what?!”

“Yeah,” Jess says, looking a tad sheepish, and he’s laughing, head thrown back, because _of course_ this happened to Jess. “Probably should have caught on when he asked me to pick out a pair of boxers for him, but I thought he was just being, um, friendly—"

“ _What?!_ ”)

It’s easy, talking to Jess; always has been. She’s full of words and jokes, and he’s more than happy to sit back and listen to the sound of her voice wash over him. It helps as well that she’ll shift slightly closer to him as she speaks, her hands moving animatedly, and he can just about feel her knee nudging against his. They stay next to one another on the floor for what seems like _hours_ , but was probably only twenty minutes at most, until Jess glances at their empty bottles and tells him that she’ll go and get more drinks and to stay right there…and he does, because where else would he go? There’s no-one else he even remotely _likes_ at this party, except for Schmidt (most days).

Cece smoothly slides next to him almost as soon as Jess gets up as if she was waiting for the spot to become empty, and he jumps at the sudden movement, immediately on edge. She’s looking at him intensely, searching his face, and he clears his throat, awkwardly shoving his hands into his pockets just to have something to do. His stomach does a flip as she continues staring, and he doesn't know why she's here because they've never really spoken before, but he's sure it's not going to end well.

“You like her, don’t you?”

Nick swallows hard, stomach doing another flip, and tries his best to feign innocence because this is really not the conversation he wants to be having; not now, not ever, _especially_ when Jess is only several metres away. Cece rolls her eyes at him, shakes her head as if he’s being a complete idiot, and he gives her a careful shrug, averts his gaze.

“Uh, yeah, sure. I mean, we’re friends.”

“Yeah,” she says, then gives him a pointed look, “but you _like_ her, right?”

Nick swallows again, licks his lips. Is he _that_ obvious? And, if he is, does Jess know? And if she does know, why is she still hanging out with him on the floor? What does that mean? —okay, stop it, Nick. You're probably fine. Relax.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says evenly, then excuses himself… except, he’s caught off guard enough by her unexpected probing that he ends up turning and walking straight into the wall, hard enough that he knows he’s going to have a fiery bruise in a couple of hours: _real smooth_ , Miller.

* * *

(“Jess, you’re leading him on,” Cece whispers, pulling Jess into a corner and tilting her head subtly at Nick who’s currently rummaging around the freezer for something cold to stick on his face.

“No, I’m not,” Jess says, frowning. “How many times do I have to tell you that we’re just friends? I mean, I'm going on a date with that guy from the wedding, you know that. And Nick's...Nick. He's probably dating people too.”

Cece shakes her head, gives her a slight roll of her eyes.

“Jess, babe, I’m only bringing this up again because I love you, but you and Nick—”

“We’re just friends!”

“Jess, come on. You went with him to a wedding, you baked him a cake for his birthday, you spent the entire week making him his present…”

“So? He’s my friend! That’s what friends do!”

“Yeah, but you also dragged me around the craft store for _two whole hours_ trying to find the right shade of green yarn for his present. You don’t do that for just a ‘friend’.”

“I’d do that for you!” she exclaims defensively, because one, she 100% would – and has done so in the past – and two, she doesn’t understand why Cece won’t back down from this argument. It’s becoming an almost daily occurrence at this point, and there’s only so many times she can repeat the same sentiments.)

* * *

Nick's holding a pack of frozen peas to his cheek, leaning against the freezer, when he catches sight of Jess and Cece having what looks like a heated conversation in the corner. He squints in their direction, his chest starting to feel uncomfortably tight, the first beads of sweat forming, praying to anyone _up there_ that Cece hasn’t just pulled Jess aside to warn her about him and his misplaced crush. Jess glances over at him then, as if she can hear his thoughts, but she immediately looks away again when their eyes meet and, oh god, is this what a heart attack feels like? Is he...dying? If so, he really needs to start getting his shit together and start exercising or something because this does not feel good whatsoever. Miller, all you had to do was tell one decent lie and you couldn’t even do that.

Jess walks over after a minute, wordlessly hands him the beer she’d promised, unsmiling. It’s so out-of-character for Jess, who’s almost always grinning and joking with him, that it makes him sweat even harder, inwardly praying for the ground to swallow him up right this second. ...but it doesn't, so he takes a deep breath, wills himself to have enough strength to make it through this conversation.

“Are ya, uh, okay? That looked kinda…intense.”

“Oh, no, it was nothing,” Jess says dismissively, but she’s still frowning, glancing down at the floor, twisting her hands together.

He waits a second for her to continue, but she doesn’t, and he finds himself placing his beer down on the table so that he can reach out and lift her chin up with his free hand until she’s looking him in the eye again. He doesn't want to have this conversation, but he also doesn't want to see her looking so troubled.

“ _Jessica_.”

Jess sighs heavily then, her gaze landing on something in the distance, and he just shifts the frozen peas on his face, forcing himself not to panic and moonwalk away, even though the urge to do so is very much there.

“She, um, she thinks that we can't be friends, or that I'm...leading you on or something,” she says slowly, still staring straight ahead, brow furrowed. “I told her she was being silly, because…it _is_ silly. We’re really are just friends. Right?"

Nick swallows, forces himself not to react, even though that tightness in his chest returns full force at her words until he’s seriously wondering if he needs to make an appointment with a doctor. He knew this was coming at some point, but it doesn’t make hearing it any easier; doesn't make it hurt any less. She just wants to be friends with you, Miller. _Just. Friends._ You’re a real, goddamn idiot for even letting yourself think that there might be something here. Jess has always been out of your league and you’ve always known that. It's time to accept that and move on.

“Yeah. Right,” he echoes slowly, voice hoarse, just about managing to get the words out, fighting the overwhelming urge to run from this talk and hole himself up in his room for the next week. “Just…friends.”

Jess stares at him for a tense couple of seconds, searching his face, and he thinks she finds what she’s looking for somehow because she visibly relaxes all of a sudden, shoots him a smile, gently nudging at his shoulder. She reaches into her purse then and pulls out a neatly wrapped package, handing it over to him.

“Hey, I, um, I got you a present. I know you said no presents, but it's your birthday and everyone should get presents on their birthday."

He eyes her for a second, his heart still weirdly painful, but he puts the frozen peas down anyway and takes the parcel from her. It’s…squishy underneath the meticulously taped wrapping paper, squishy enough that he has absolutely no idea what it could possibly be. He glances over at Jess, smiling slightly despite the hollowness in his chest as he sees that she’s biting her bottom lip, clearly anxious as she awaits his reaction.

“Can I open it?”

Jess nods, though she’s still biting her lip, watching him intently. He shifts his gaze down to the task at hand, starts ripping the paper, a genuine smile twisting at his lips as he realises what he’s now holding.

“Did you make this?”

“Yeah,” she confirms, shifting on the spot nervously, then, “I know it’s silly, and you’re probably not going to want to keep it, but I wanted to give you something. It’s weird, you know, because I’m usually _excellent_ at gifting presents, I’m like, a gift genius normally, but I really didn’t know what to get you and—”

“—Hey, no, this is great, Jess,” he tells her sincerely, unable to stop the smile on his face as he twists the object in his hand so he can get a better look. Yeah, so, maybe she just sees him as a friend and his feelings for her are completely one-sided and unrequited, but this is solid proof that she cares. She made this, with her own two hands, for _him_. That’s…something, right? He swallows hard, tries his best to push those thoughts away, because damn it, he is so, _so_ screwed, and he knows he's just digging himself a deeper hole every time he talks to her, but he can’t seem to stop himself from indulging in this fantasy anyway. She just wants to be friends with you, Miller. Just friends, and that—that has to be enough for you. You have to accept that.

“Okay,” she says, letting out a sigh of relief, stops moving around so much. “Good.”

They’re silent for a moment, both staring at the little knitted turtle in his hands, frowning smile and all, matching grins on their faces.

“You know, I’ve always wanted a pet turtle,” he tells her casually as the silence draws on a little bit too long for it to be comfortable, forces himself to pitch his voice at as normal a level as possible. “Never got one though because I’m pretty bad at keeping things alive, so this is _perfect_ , actually.”

Jess grins a bit wider at that, and when he looks up again, she’s noticeably closer than before, close enough that he can’t look away, his mouth suddenly very dry as he reminds himself that he needs to _breathe_. Inhale, exhale, Miller. Jess looks like she’s about to say something further, and he swears that he sees her eyes dart down to his mouth for a split-second, but before she can say or do anything (and before _he_ can say or do anything), Schmidt starts yelling for him. Jess jumps back, startled at the sound, a slow blush spreading across her cheeks, but when he refocuses his gaze on her, the moment’s gone.

Huh.


	9. triple chocolate ice-cream and sprinkles

The next few minutes pass in a blur. He vaguely remembers grimacing through people singing happy birthday to him, even though none of them really know him, and Schmidt trying to force-feed him a piece of cake and a pitcher of bro juice, but all he can think about is Jess and how he’s 90% sure that they’d just had a _moment_ and that she’d looked at him, albeit for just a second, as if she wanted to kiss him. He’s not—he’s not gone insane, right? He’s not hallucinating? (Except, that really does sound like something that he would do: get so far in his head that he starts seeing things that aren’t there—and hadn’t she just told him, extremely clearly, that she just wanted to be friends with him?)

“Okay, so you should definitely not get a pet turtle,” Jess pipes up from beside him.

He jumps slightly, feels his cheeks grow warm even though nothing’s even happening, then spends a second trying to regain his composure, clearing his throat once and running his hand through his hair. Focus, Miller. _Concentrate_.

“Uh, what?”

Very smooth.

Jess just grins at him, reaches up to pat his cheek like she always does, all _friendly_ , tilts her head towards the knitted turtle in his hands and—okay, he has been squeezing it very hard. It’s not his fault; he’s just trying to process a lot of things that may or may not have happened. He clears his throat again, loosens his grip, squishing the turtle around so it looks less deformed. He keeps staring down at the turtle, because the turtle’s looking up at him with that little frown on its tiny face and that’s pretty much exactly how he feels right now: confused enough that he can now relate to an inanimate _knitted turtle_. Miller, seriously, get a damn grip on yourself; sure, some of this might be related to the bro juice he’s been made to consume, but most of it is not.

“Are you okay?” Jess asks then, slight frown on her forehead, glancing between him and the turtle in his hands. “You’ve got a really…intense look on your face.”

Nick shakes his head hard, forces himself to glance back up again.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he replies, though he knows she’s not convinced by it, that frown on her forehead deepening. “I think I just need to, uh, get some air. This—everything is getting a bit much.”

“Oh,” Jess says, still frowning at him, gently places her hand on his arm, and he forces himself not to react, even though where she’s touching him feels like it’s burning. “Do you want me to come? I know a great ice-cream place two blocks down if you fancy that.”

He doesn’t reply straightaway, conflicted. Maybe he really did imagine everything. Jess certainly isn’t acting like she’d wanted to _kiss_ him less than half an hour ago, and even if she did think about it for a split-second, it’s not like anything actually happened. She just wants to be _friends_ , you idiot, and the more you stress about things that may or may not have happened in her head, the more you’re going to end up screwing everything up.

“I don’t, um, I don’t have to come with you if you don’t want me to. That’s cool, really. I just thought I’d offer in case…”

He glances at her again, and he guesses his silence was a little too long because she’s staring at him with an unmistakable look of hurt in her eyes. He closes his eyes briefly, a wave of guilt spreading over him. This isn’t her fault; this is all on you. Get it together, Miller. If she says she wants to be friends, then you’re going to have to live with that. He lets out a breath, shakes his head, gives her a small smile.

“No, let’s—let’s go and get ice-cream,” he says, his smile growing wider as Jess instantly beams up at him, eyes all bright and sparkly, and his heart clenches in his chest because she’s the prettiest girl he thinks he’s ever met, inside and out. He wants to be friends with her, just friends, if that’s all that she wants, but—he also wants _everything_ with her, in a way that he hasn’t wanted with anyone since Caroline, and that’s terrifying. Face it, Miller; this isn’t a tiny, meaningless crush anymore. This is _real_.

* * *

He manages to escape from the party without too much drama. Schmidt protests for a good five minutes, but then he tells him where he's going - and, more importantly, with who - and he promptly shuts up, gives him a lewd wink. ("No, no, it's not like that," he says, grimacing, because it...really isn't, and he knows that.) He quickly pops into his bedroom to grab a jacket before he goes to find Jess again, places the knitted turtle on his desk and then stares at it for a second, pats its head. We're gonna figure this out, pal. We're gonna be okay. And, yeah, maybe he's losing it a bit.

Jess leads the way towards the ice-cream place, throwing out random facts about different trees and flowers that they pass, and he tries his hardest to listen and contribute, but he gets lost pretty fast. Jess doesn’t seem to notice though, continuing to fill the silence, and he’s more than happy to let her to, his mind still whirring. The fresh air is doing him some good though, and he’s feeling less weird around her than he was earlier so that’s…something, right? 

They make it to the ice-cream place and Jess proudly throws open the door for him in a way that's so unnecessarily dramatic that he can't help but chuckle at it. He hovers behind her, watching in amusement as she immediately sidles up to the counter and stares down at all the different ice-cream flavours, seemingly unable to decide, for long enough that a queue of disgruntled customers starts building up behind them.

“Jess, it’s very simple,” he says, shaking his head at her a little. “All you have to do is pick one.”

“What are you having?” Jess asks, turning to look at him, and he stifles a laugh at the _genuinely_ clueless expression on her face.

Nick shrugs, points at one at random, because he honestly couldn’t really care less. He likes all ice-cream; he’s not a picky kinda guy when it comes to food and that one looks distinctively chocolatey so…that will do. Jess narrows her eyes at him as if she’s actually offended for the _ice-cream_ that he’s not spending longer making a decision, but after a second, she turns towards the counter and swiftly orders for both of them.

  
“Triple chocolate, _extra_ sprinkles,” she says. “Like, I don’t want to be able to see the ice-cream underneath the sprinkles.”

“Um, okay—”

“—So many sprinkles that each bite is half ice-cream, half-sprinkles, if you get what I mean.”

“Jess, I think she gets it,” he cuts in then, gently places one hand on her shoulder to shift her along and digs in his pocket with his other hand for some coins. Jess beats him to it though, her wallet open and card brandished before he’s even managed to find his trusty plastic bag.

“Don’t even think about it,” he says, shaking his head at her, but Jess just waves him away, turns slightly, almost as if she’s trying to physically block the cash register from him.

“It’s your birthday,” she tells him. "I've got this."

“Don’t care,” he replies, “you’re not paying.”

“Yes, I am.”

“ _Jessica_ , no.”

“ _Nicholas_ , yes.”

They stare at each other then, matching looks of indignation on their faces, until there’s a loud, abrasive clearing of the throat behind them. He slowly tears his eyes away from Jess to see the girl behind the counter rolling her eyes a little, clearly unamused, and he takes his chance and quickly slides in front of Jess. Once he's safely past her, he successfully pulls his plastic bag from his pocket, ignoring the fact that a bunch of keys and receipts fall to the floor, and slams it down on the counter with a flourish.

“Is that your…wallet?”

“Maybe,” he answers as he fishes out the required coins and passes it over, feeling a weird surge of satisfaction over the fact that he’s managed to win this petty little…argument or whatever it was. It’s odd, because yeah, he _likes_ Jess, but they also seem to end up in these stupid, infuriating little stand-offs on a regular basis.

“Oh, Nick,” Jess says, and he glances over her shoulder to see her shaking her head at him, but she’s got a little secretive smile as she does it, and the sight makes him feel all warm again until he almost can't remember why he was feeling so weird and uncomfortable earlier. Almost. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he tells her, hands her the ice-cream once it’s been scooped out, then tilts his head towards one of the tables. “Shall we?”

* * *

The ice-cream’s sufficiently chocolatey and covered in sprinkles, and it really is good ice-cream, but he makes unusually slow progress through it, distracted enough by the girl sitting opposite him. Jess starts telling him some story about how she’d once tried to protest against her local Chinese takeaway because they kept putting paper flyers under her door and it ended up in her getting a man _fired_ , and it’s an engaging story and he has a bunch of questions, but she keeps glancing at her phone screen, stopping speaking every so often to type out a quick message.

“Who are ya texting?” Nick asks, eyeing her curiously, then puts on a mock-offended tone. “It’s _my_ birthday, phone away, please.”

Jess shoots him an apologetic look, slides her phone back in her pocket.

“Sorry,” she says sincerely, starts digging through her ice-cream again, and her next words make him instantly regret having said anything in the first place. Should have kept your mouth shut, Miller.

“I, um, I actually have a date tomorrow with that guy I danced with at Paul’s wedding. He’s the first guy that I’ve liked since Spencer and I’m not really…good at this stuff.”

He swallows hard, heart plummeting for the hundredth time this evening, and he hates that he’s torturing himself like this, but he just can’t stop. He can’t pull himself away. _First guy she’s liked._ Yeah, so, she definitely hadn’t wanted to kiss you earlier, you goddamn idiot.

“Oh,” he says, voice hoarse, blinks hard.

“Enough about me though, it _is_ your birthday,” she says then, looking at him curiously, waggling her eyebrows at him a bit. “What about you? Any girls that I should know about? I’m an excellent wing-woman.”

“Uh, no, nothing to report,” he replies after a beat, voice a little flat, shovels another mouthful of ice-cream into his mouth, giving himself semi-brain freeze in hopes that she’ll accept that answer and move on because he suddenly feels like he can’t breathe again—except, it’s Jess, and he should really know better than that by now.

“Really?” She asks, raises an eyebrow, clearly oblivious to the meltdown, both figuratively and literally, currently occurring in his brain. “I don’t believe that.”

Nick closes his eyes briefly, shifts in his seat, wishing he was sat closer to the door so he could moonwalk right out of this place. This is not something that he wants to get into, especially not with Jess, and _especially_ not now that he knows she's going on a date with some guy that isn't him. It’s bad enough that Schmidt’s been forcing them to have bedtime talks to discuss their respective love lives lately, though they usually end up being half an hour monologues from Schmidt about Cece’s body and Nick wordlessly holding out the jar in his direction. (It’s kinda sad, but he sorta thinks that a jar might be richer than him at this point.)

  
“There’s a girl,” he says awkwardly, after a second, and he’s not entirely sure what he’s saying or where he’s going with this, he just—he just doesn’t want that look of pity on her face. Jess’ eyes widen slightly, tilting her head for him to continue, though her expression is oddly unreadable, which makes no sense because why should she care? He's just her friend.

“Yeah, she’s great. She's, uh, she’s really hot and funny and interesting and she, I don’t know, she _cares_ about everyone and everything, but…"

“But?”

Nick shrugs, slowly takes another bite of his ice-cream, cheeks burning, and stares at the table in a pitiful attempt to hide his own discomfort. Why is he talking about Jess, albeit cryptically, _to_ Jess?! It works for about five blissful seconds until Jess starts tapping the table, loud and fast enough that he glances up again.

“You should ask her out,” Jess tells him, voice all matter of fact as if the solution to all his problems is obvious, reaching up to nudge her glasses up a bit.

He laughs at that, more than a little hollowly. Yeah, so that’s definitely not happening, especially now that he knows that she’s got a date with _the first guy she’s liked_ since her ex. He’s not about to put his dignity on the line when he already knows what the outcome would be, and it would definitely not be in his favour.

“What? I’m serious, Nick,” she says, brow furrowed. “Why not?”

“Pretty sure she’d say no,” he replies lightly, then swallows hard to try and erase the sudden bitter taste in his mouth even though he’s currently eating triple chocolate ice-cream with a stupid amount of sprinkles. He’s not sure why he’s putting himself through this torment, but it’s too late to back down now.

Jess stares at him for a second, leans forward on her forearms.

“Well,” she says, drawing out the word slightly. “If she says no, then she didn't deserve you in the first place.”

He smiles slightly at that, though he’s still staring down at his ice-cream, half-afraid to look up at her face. He’s not sure what her words mean in the grand scheme of things, but they don’t do much to help the pain in his chest subside. The fact that she seemingly wants him to ask out a girl that isn't her doesn't make him feel great.

“I mean it, Nick. You deserve something amazing,” she continues, and her voice is earnest enough that he can’t help but glance up… and then he can’t look away because her eyes are so damn _blue_ and captivating and intense, and he instantly knows he’d do anything for her. Jess stares back at him for a moment, a multitude of emotions flashing across her face, but then she grins at him, shrugs her shoulders. 

“Plus…if she says no, give me her name and I’ll beat her up for you,” she says jokingly, and it’s enough to break the spell and lighten the atmosphere, and suddenly he’s smiling back at her. Just a little.

“Yeah, not sure that’ll work.”

“Why?”

“Just…because,” he says non-committedly, shakes his head a little.

( _Because, the girl is you_.)

“What are you talking about? I could totally do it. I could totally beat her up,” she protests, crosses her arms almost defiantly, eyes stubborn. “I’d do it for you, Miller.”

He forces a smile onto his face, takes another careful bite of his ice-cream, inwardly curses the way his heart starts beating faster at her words even though she doesn’t mean them in the same context that he desperately wishes she would.

“Thanks,” he says, and then looks her straight in the eyes as he swipes his spoon into her ice-cream, grinning a little as she instantly baulks and starts swatting his hands away. Yeah, so, maybe this is kinda torture, but he’d still do it all over again if it means that he gets to hear her laugh.

* * *

(“Okay, so…you might be right,” Jess says hesitantly into the phone, feeling her cheeks heat up even as she thinks about it. Is it hot in here? It sure feels hot.

“About? I’m right about a lot of things,” Cece replies, her tone already gloating even though they haven’t even scratched the surface on what she wants to talk about yet.

It’s just, she’s been _so convinced_ that Cece was wrong about this, but she’d had a dream about Nick last night, an unmistakably, um, _twirly_ dream, and—god, it’s weird to even think about it again because it’s Nick, we’re talking about here, her good pal Nick. She’s supposed to be going on a date with that guy from the wedding tonight, right after she gets her stuff back from Spencer’s place, not getting all flustered over Nick Miller and his adorable little turtle face and messy hair and plastic bag that he thinks is a wallet.

“Jess?”

This isn’t real, right? This doesn’t actually mean anything. This is just because they’ve been spending lots of time together lately and he’s been nice enough to help her with Spencer without blinking an eye, being all selfless and generous and _there_.

“Jess? Hello?”

Though…okay, she’ll admit it: he’d been so genuinely appreciative of the gift she’d made for him as if she’d bought him the entire world, and he'd smelt all woody and clean and his eyes had been staring at her all warm and intense, that she’d thought about what kissing him would be like for a split-second. …but, um, that was just a lapse of judgement. Nothing more.

“What was I right about?”

Besides, from what he said to her at the ice-cream place and the infatuated look on his face when he'd said it, it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t like _her_ like that, despite what Cece might think. So… it was just a dream and they’re just friends, and she doesn’t really have feelings for him. This is just her overthinking everything because she’s never really had friends that are _guys_ before.

“ _Jess_.”

…but, if that’s the case, why does the idea of Nick asking out that girl he’d talked about make her chest feel all hollow and tight?

“Um…nothing.”)

* * *

Nick wakes up the next morning after a dream that may or may not have involved Jess. He buries his head into his pillow as he realises that fact, screams a little, and then rolls over and promptly slaps himself across both cheeks. What is he doing? Why is he like this? He makes up his mind then and drags himself out of bed until he's standing right in front of the turtle that's sitting innocently on his desk. Leaning down so he's eye-level with it, and mildly aware that he's _really_ losing at this point, he starts speaking at it conversationally: right, buddy, she just wants to be friends so you're gonna have to move on. Let's make a plan.

Let's make a plan and _stick to it_.


	10. failed plans and fist-bumps

The plan that he comes up with is simple: avoid all contact with Jess until he’s gotten all of these traitorous, self-sabotaging thoughts out of his head. She’d made it pretty clear that she doesn’t see him as any more than a friend, and that’s cool. Really. He’d be a real jerk if he held that against her, especially when she’d gone all out for his birthday and made him the best gift he’s probably ever received in his entire life. He just needs a couple of days to himself to figure out the best way to suppress all these ( _ugh_ ) feelings bubbling up inside of him, and then he can go back to being friends with her.

The execution of his plan, however, is not so simple, thanks to Schmidt (that idiot). He drags himself out of his bedroom the day after his party, feeling oddly positive about his plan, but just as he takes his first bite of cereal, his phone beeps.

_Hey, Miller. Schmidt gave me your number._ _I’m going to get my stuff back from Spencer’s in a bit, which you really don’t have to come for, but I was just wondering if you were free today? We could go and get ice-cream again? Or just a coffee? I may or may not know a place where we can get coffee for free :) – Jess xoxo_

Nick rubs a hand roughly over his face and then squeezes his eyes shut as he feels his resolve cracking already. How is reading a mere _text_ making his heart beat faster? Is that even physiologically possible? He exhales, forces himself not to stare at the _xoxo_ at the bottom because she clearly didn’t mean anything by it, shovels two more mouthfuls of cereal down his throat, and then slowly taps out a reply. He kinda hates himself for being so weak that he has to resort to avoidance as a coping mechanism, but hey, he knows himself and this is just what he has to do. It’s better than the alternative, right? Going along with her to her ex-boyfriend’s house, the ex-boyfriend who thinks _he’s_ her boyfriend, and then sending her off on a date with another guy? Yeah, no, he’s not up for that yet.

_Can’t, sorry. I’m moving money around._ _– N_

* * *

It doesn’t stop there though. He does his best to avoid going anywhere near the coffee shop for several days, even though Schmidt keeps bugging him about it incessantly.

“Schmidt, drop it, okay? I’m going off the grid!”

“Nicholas, you can’t just _go off the grid_. That’s not what normal people do!”

“Just stay out of it, Schmidt _,”_ he yells back, and then he fashions himself a DIY lock on his bedroom door and slams his door shut, not even opening it when Schmidt tries to bribe him out with a bucket of freshly bought burritos.

He’s not proud of the way that he’s acting, because it feels distinctly like how he acted after Caroline dumped him despite this being an entirely different situation. This isn't forever though, it's just for a few days while he sorts out his head…though he could live in here, right? Just him and his knitted turtle, living on the meat he’s been hanging in his closet for special occasions. (Here’s the other thing: he should probably get rid of this damn turtle because every time he looks at it, he remembers Jess and the way she’d leaned into him on his birthday like she’d _maybe_ wanted to kiss him, but—he can’t bring himself to do it. He’s weirdly attached to it, in a way that a grown man probably shouldn’t be.)

_Hey, Miller. It’s me, again. Did I do something to you? Schmidt says you’re fine, and that this is definitely your number, but if you were fine, you’d reply, right?_

* * *

Schmidt’s the one that forced him into his room, but he’s also the one that eventually gets him out again. (Though, he has been leaving him home-cooked meals and beers outside his bedroom every day and he always stops by before he goes to sleep to have their daily bedtime chats so if he really wanted him to come out sooner, he probably shouldn’t have been doing that.)

“Look, man, if you don’t open the door, then I’ll just bring Jess here,” he says, knocking loudly. “I don’t know what happened, but you can’t just run away from this.”

Nick sighs, rubs a hand over his face and slowly drags himself out of bed, fumbling with the mechanism on his door until he’s able to open it just enough to see Schmidt’s left eye.

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me,” Schmidt says, staring up at him defiantly, his arms crossed.

He lets out a slow breath, but pushes his door open just a bit more, and Schmidt instantly capitalises on the opening, storming his way in, sniffing around and opening up all his windows. Once he’s stopped complaining about the ‘dumpsite’ that he’s currently standing in (which, hey, it’s really not that bad; he _did_ leave his room to shower, okay? He’s not an animal), Schmidt gingerly sits himself down on his bed and pats his knee gently.

“Okay, what happened?”

“Nothing,” he says back, even though at this point, he knows that Schmidt isn’t going to believe him.

It’s not a lie though: nothing did happen. He knows he’s acting like a goddamn child, but this... _nothing_ was getting a little too overwhelming and he was pretty sure he was going to do something that he’d regret sooner or later and potentially screw up their entire friendship. The distance has honestly helped though, and he feels like he can see everything clearly for the first time in a while. He can be friends with Jess, just friends, if that’s what she wants. It’s better than not having her in his life at all, and if he’s honest, he kinda misses the days when he could have a conversation with her without second-guessing every word and every look.

“There are thousands of girls out there for you, Nick. I mean, _I’d_ consider dating you if I was a girl…well, you’d have to lose a few pounds first, overhaul your wardrobe, change your beard trimming setting, but—”

“— _Schmidt_ , not helping,” he interrupts quickly, “but…thanks, I guess.”

* * *

Nick tries his hardest to get everything with Jess back on track, he really does. He wakes up the next morning, pulls on his trusty hoodie, and heads down to the coffee shop, all determined, and—hey, whoa, he’s forgotten what sunlight feels like. Does it always feel so warm? Is it always so bright? He’s almost smiling as he walks in, but his positive demeanour disappears almost immediately, because Jess is sitting at his – _their_ – normal table like he’d been hoping she would be at this time of the day, but she’s not alone. Sitting opposite to her is a silhouette of someone who he’s pretty sure is wedding guy. He stares in their direction for a moment as he silently joins the queue, trying his best not to focus on the churning in his stomach as he sees Jess laughing at something that wedding guy is saying, her eyes all sparkly even from this distance, her head thrown back. Does the universe hate him? He really doesn’t need to see this.

“Oh, hey, you’re back,” Winston says as he reaches the front of the queue, eyeing him curiously over the counter. “Are you looking for Jess? Jess is over there.”

Nick shakes his head, forces himself not to look in the direction he’s pointing in, and swiftly orders a coffee instead.

“Nope, I’m, uh, I’m actually here to see…you,” he lies, and he knows he’s not being amazingly convincing because he can feel his back getting uncomfortably warm, but Winston seems to buy it, his eyes lighting up at his words, shooting him a genuine smile.

“Really?”

“Yeah, uh, what have you been up to, man?”

“You any good at pranks?”

Nick blinks, leans forward across the counter, his attention suddenly diverted. He’s dimly aware that he’s going to have to deal with this Jess situation sooner or later, but if there’s one thing that’s going to be able to distract him from all the self-induced mess that he’s created, it’s pranks.

“Tell me everything _,”_ he orders.

He’s halfway through trying to explain to Winston why pouring a spoonful of juice outside of his roommate’s room is too small to be considered a prank and why his second suggestion of hitting him in the throat with a ski would be considered _assault_ (“I went to law school, man. Trust me, you don’t want to do that.”) when he feels a tap on his back.

“Miller?”

Nick turns at the sound of his name, his heart beating faster even as he tries his hardest to stop it.

“I thought that was you!” Jess says brightly, but her smile falters as she meets his eyes. “Are you okay? I don’t know if Schmidt’s been passing on my messages or you lost your phone or something, but I was getting worried.”

“I’m fine,” he tells her, feeling a slight twinge of guilt at his disappearance causing her concern, taking a careful sip of his coffee.

Jess searches his face, opening her mouth to speak, but before she can get any words out, wedding guy walks up to them, swings an arm around Jess’ shoulders and sticks his hand in his direction. Nick glances over at Winston briefly for assistance, but Winston’s still muttering to himself about his orange juice ‘prank’ and—yeah, he guesses he’s doing this all alone then. Great.

“Hey, man. I’m Sam,” the guy says, hand still stuck out, nodding down at him.

“Nick,” he replies curtly, forces himself not to grimace outwardly (though he is very much doing so inwardly) and reaches out to shake his offered hand, and—uh, has he gotten weaker from all his days inside or is this handshake weirdly aggressive? Honest to God, it’s borderline painful, and he thinks he might have just heard his bones crack.

Sam holds onto his hand for a few more seconds than socially acceptable and then releases it abruptly, so suddenly that Nick’s hand almost flies back into his own face. Sam just grins at him from where he’s still got his other arm around Jess’ shoulders, the grin a touch smug, and—ugh, okay, maybe he’s biased, but Jess is dating _this guy_? Seriously?

“Are you a friend of Jess’? She hasn’t mentioned you,” Sam continues, looking down at him still with that smug grin on his face, and Nick gets the impression that he knows _exactly_ what he’s doing.

“Well, she hasn’t mentioned you either,” he lies, though it comes out a bit weak, and he’s dimly aware that Jess is frowning irritably at him, her brow all furrowed.

They stare back at one another and he’s not really a violent kinda guy because he’s never been great at fighting, but he weirdly wants to punch him in the face. Jess glances between both of them, clears her throat once, but it’s Winston who breaks the silence in the end, seemingly having caught on to the sudden shift in atmosphere.

“Uh, Sam, can I get you a coffee?”

Sam shakes his head, gives Winston a smile that looks nothing like the one he’d gotten (what’s that about? he’s done nothing wrong?), and then turns to Jess.

“Jess, I have to get to the hospital, but I’ll see you tonight, right?”

Nick pulls a face and immediately tries to avert his eyes as Jess nods up at him, but he’s a second too late and he catches Jess rising on her tiptoes to kiss him, then giggle, and then…fist-bump him? (again, _this guy_?) He keeps his eyes trained on Winston until he hears Sam leave, and then, still looking straight ahead, he can’t help but make a snide remark.

“Well, I wish I hadn’t seen that.” 

Jess whips her head around to stare at him, slowly crossing her arms across her chest, her eyes flashing dangerously at him. He’s not sure why he said that or why he’s acting like this (well, okay, he _does_ ), but he feels oddly on edge and frustrated because seeing their exchange has made him realise he’ll never get to be _that guy_ all over again.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” he says immediately, shifting on the spot a little awkwardly. What is he doing? Why did he come here? He had a plan!

“You don’t like him, do you?”

Nick doesn’t say anything, not trusting himself enough to string together a sentence that isn’t going to make everything worse. He doesn't want to make her mad at him, he really doesn't. Jess gives him a reproachful look as he continues to stay silent, her hands going to her hips and her eyes narrowed suspiciously in his direction.

“Why don’t you like him?”

“I do. He’s fine. He’s cool,” he tells her quickly, but Jess doesn’t buy it. Instead, she continues staring at him accusingly, her eyes stubborn.

“ _Why don’t you like him_?”

“Jess, don’t do this,” he replies, rubbing a hand tiredly over his face as she starts glaring up at him, her cheeks flushed. “I’m begging ya, don’t do this. Not today.”

“Don’t do what? Nick, why don’t you like him?”

“You don’t want to know the answer to that,” he mutters slowly, the words coming out hollow, feeling weirdly defeated. He’d decided to try and be her friend, right? Well, then, he’s just going to have to deal with this and live with it. “Jess, just…drop it, please.”

Jess frowns at him, her eyes narrowing further, and then she shakes her head a few times, her expression turning fiery as she meets his gaze.

“No, I’m not going to drop it, Nick! I don’t know what’s going on here! You don’t talk to me in days, you don’t even reply to a single text, and now you’re here being all evasive and judgemental when I’ve done nothing wrong! If you have something to say, then just say it!”

He takes a breath and tries not to take the bait, but it's too late.

“Do you really want me to, Jess? Do you really want me to say it?” Nick bites out, his frustrations suddenly coming back in full force. Deep-down he knows it’s entirely unfair for him to be acting this way, but he can’t seem to stop the words from spilling out of his mouth.

“Yes! Just say it already!”

Nick stares at her for a split-second and watches the way her chest is rising and falling fast, her brow furrowed deeply, and he... He cracks. He knows he should lower his voice, but he’s got all of this adrenaline running through him and she just _doesn’t get it_ and she won’t ever get it, and he can’t keep everything inside any longer.

“I don’t like him, because—because he’s not _me_!”

Jess blinks, gapes at him, takes half a step back and crosses her arms warily.

“What?” Jess asks, her voice dropping several octaves lower, cautious. “What does that mean?”

He laughs hollowly at that, because yeah, she’s Jess but surely she can’t be _that_ naïve (can she?) and goddamn it, there’s no turning back from this now. Why did he think it was a good idea to walk in here this morning? Congrats, Nick, you’ve really done it this time.

“Wait a second. _Wait a second,_ ” she says slowly, and he feels his back become uncomfortably damp as her eyes widen in slow realisation, her brow furrowing. “What about…what about that girl you were telling me about on your birthday? The one you like?”

He stares at her blankly, his mouth falling open slightly, because _seriously_? Is she going to make him spell it out? He knows the moment she gets it because her eyes widen even wider if possible, her cheeks flushing a deep red, and that’s also the moment that he starts panicking. He's not sure if his self-esteem can survive this.

“Nick…” she starts hesitantly.

He immediately looks away from her, breathing hard, because he doesn’t want to hear whatever she has to say, but Jess puts out a hand to stop him from walking away, fingers firmly grasping around his wrist. He glances down at her fingers briefly before squeezing his eyes shut, feeling increasingly more mortified by the second. Way to go, Miller. What have you done?

“Look, Jess, just forget that I said anything,” he mutters fast, waving a hand dismissively in her direction. “I know ya don’t—I get it, okay? You don’t need to say it.”

“Nick.”

“It’s cool. I’m, uh, actually late for something so I’m just gonna go and I’ll see ya around—”

“— _Miller,_ shut up for a second,” Jess interrupts, her voice firm enough that he trails off.

Jess takes a step forward then, her fingers still loosely wrapped around his wrist, and he just stares dumbly back at her, because he’s not sure what he should do or say, feeling overwhelmingly exposed and vulnerable. Jess gives him a small smile, an unreadable expression on her face, and she reaches up and gently pats his cheek, almost sympathetically. It’s so achingly familiar in the worst of ways, and it reminds him all over again that she only wants to be his friend. Which…is _fine_. Really.

He squeezes his eyes shut, takes a few deep breaths in and feels himself relax, the tension slowly seeping out of his body until he can’t quite remember why he was yelling in the first place. He starts to open his mouth to apologise for screwing everything up in classic Nick Miller-style because this was the last thing that he'd wanted to do today, but Jess beats him to it.

“I’ve thought about it once or twice,” he hears her say suddenly, quiet enough that he almost misses it.

The words are so unexpected that he immediately jerks his head back up until his eyes have landed on hers, the slight twinge of hope stirring somewhere deep inside of his gut. He stares at Jess for a few seconds, his mouth opening and closing a couple of times as he tries to decide on the best course of action. She’s ‘thought about it’? What does that mean? She’s dating wedding guy, isn’t she? Did she just say that to make him feel better about himself? Because she felt sorry for him? Or…

Jess stares back at him, slowly crossing her arms across her chest, looking like she’s exceedingly embarrassed that those words have slipped out of her mouth, visibly cringing at herself. It wouldn't be difficult for him to forget this moment, move on from it and never talk about it again, but—nope, he’s not letting her get away that easily, not today; not when he's just seen her kiss (and goddamn fist-bump) another guy. He narrows his eyes at her suspiciously, says a silent prayer under his breath and then throws all caution to the wind and takes two steps forward, closing the distance between them. Jess’ eyes widen as he does so, tracking his movements, her cheeks slowly growing redder as he draws nearer, and—huh, maybe she really _has_ thought about it and that door isn’t entirely closed.

Interesting.

Very, very interesting.

Well, well, well.

“What are you… what are you doing?” Jess asks, her voice going all high-pitched and breathy as he ducks his head slightly so that he can look her straight in the eyes, close enough now that he can smell the familiar scent of her shampoo circling around him. 

“Nothing,” Nick replies coolly, leaning in a touch closer, a slow smirk twisting at his lips as he watches Jess gulp in response, her eyes darting nervously around his face. “Just…testing out a theory.”

“Nick,” she murmurs slowly. “What...”

He drops his head down a little further, enough so that they’re both aware that either one of them could easily close the gap, and—there it is. Jess swallows and tilts her head up ever so slightly, her eyes fixed on his mouth, and there’s no mistaking it this time: she’s _definitely_ thinking about kissing him.

He doesn’t kiss her though, because if he’s going to kiss her, he’s going to do it when she’s fully on-board, not like this; instead, he jerks his head backwards, grinning smugly as he sees Jess frown in response, a flash of disappointment crossing over her face.

“See ya around, Jess,” he says casually, reaches out to pat _her_ cheek for a change, and then he turns on his heel and walks out of the coffee shop, leaving a stunned Jess behind.

Time to amend that plan of yours, Miller. She might be dating wedding guy, but it's only been a week and it's not like that guy's on his knee asking her to marry him, is he? And...she clearly wanted you to kiss her just then, so: _game on_.

* * *

(“Did he just—”

“I think he did—”

Jess turns slightly, still shell-shocked, to see Winston and Aly staring at her from behind the counter, her cheeks burning up all over again under their curious gazes. She’s not quite sure what just happened, and she feels both physically and mentally exhausted.

“Honestly, I’m proud of him for finally making a move,” Winston comments loudly enough to interrupt her thoughts, still staring at her over the counter, Aly nodding in agreement by his side. “It’s about time, right?”

She squints at them and slowly crosses her arms.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, Jess,” Aly says, chuckling softly and shaking her head at her. “I love you, but— _really_?”

Her phone beeps then, and she’s half-afraid to look at it for a second, holding her breath as she glances at the screen, but…it’s not a text from Nick. It’s a text from Sam, telling her that he’s looking forward to their date later, complete with a *fist-bump* at the end. She’s momentarily disappointed when she reads the name, before sharply shaking her head and trying to rid her brain of thoughts of Nick Miller and his infuriatingly smug smile. She likes Sam, she really does; they’ve only been on a few dates so far, but it’s simple and uncomplicated, and it’s everything that she wants after the fiasco with Spencer.

She’s sure of it.

She thinks she’s sure of it?)

**END OF PART ONE**


	11. new looks and moving on

**PART 2; jess**

Things are…undeniably _weird_ between them after that. Nick disappears again for a couple of days, except this time, she doesn’t try reaching him either. It’s just, no matter how many times she replays their last encounter in her head, she can’t seem to make sense of it. Up until now, she’d honestly had no idea that he liked her like _that_ , but Cece has been hinting at it for weeks so maybe this is one of those missed-signals-slash-Eduardo moments all over again. She’s not sure how she feels about it, either. She remembers what he’d said to her at the ice-cream place, about how he thought this girl was _hot and interesting and funny,_ and it's hard to believe that he'd been talking about her the whole time. …and then, there was his outburst, and how he'd just come right out and confessed his feelings for her in the middle of the coffee shop, and he'd looked at her so miserable and heart-broken that all she’d wanted to do was to put a smile back on his face again. …except, somewhere in the process, she’d somehow ended up admitting that she’d thought about him before _in that way_ and then he’d looked like he’d wanted to kiss her, and she couldn’t stop staring at his mouth, and he kept leaning in, and in, and _in_ , until—well, until he suddenly wasn’t anymore, looking down at her so infuriatingly smug as if he knew some big secret that she didn’t.

Obviously, she _likes_ Nick, in a way that, yeah, maybe isn’t strictly platonic anymore, considering the frequency that he’s been popping up in her dreams lately, but her friendship with him means a lot to her and she doesn’t want to risk ruining that over something that might not be anything at all. Plus, there’s Sam to think about now too, and she really does like him, even though they haven’t known each other for that long; he’s funny, and sweet, and surely it wouldn’t be fair for her _not_ to give him a chance when things have been going so well so far? She decides to keep everything to herself instead of telling Cece for the first time in her life, despite Cece clearly realising that _something's_ happened, eyeing her suspiciously across the room when she thinks she’s not looking. It’s just, she knows that if she tells Cece, she’ll get a whole _I told you so_ lecture, and she’s not sure her brain can cope with that right now. There’s just too much to think about.

When she does see Nick again, he looks entirely different from the last time she saw him, sauntering into the coffee shop with Schmidt by his side, the slightest of smirks twisting at his lips. It’s not just that though, he’s physically different; he’s wearing a button-down shirt instead of his usual hoodie, his sleeves all rolled up and the first two buttons undone, and he’s sporting several days’ worth of stubble. The only thing that isn't different is his hair, all ruffled as always, and as she lifts her chin up to meet his eyes, she’s suddenly imagining running her fingers through it, and—whoa, there, Jess. Slow down.

"Hey, Jessica,” he says, leaning across the counter all casually as if he hadn't blurted out his feelings to her, almost kissed her, and then disappeared for a couple of days. “Can I get a coffee?”

She eyes him suspiciously over the counter, staying silent. Is he doing this all…for her? This…new look? This weird exuberance? She liked Nick just the way he was, but this Nick is definitely not _unwelcome_.

“Jess?”

She narrows her eyes further, watching as his smile grows a touch smug, trying her best to figure out what on Earth his game plan is, but he just grins at her and reaches out to tap the side of her head.

“Are ya in there?”

She clears her throat, aware that her silence is starting to make a queue form behind Nick, and shakes her head a little to recentre her thoughts. Nick gives her a smile then, one that _isn’t_ so smug, and she feels herself relax a little, her shoulders untensing. This is just Nick, and yeah, maybe she knows that he has feelings for her now, but—that doesn’t have to change anything, right? He knows that she’s dating Sam and he doesn’t seem that broken up about it, so maybe they can still…be friends? Unless he really _is_ doing all of this for her, and this new look is his way of trying to impress her, and if he is, well, she’s not entirely sure how she feels about that. Don’t get her wrong, he looks undeniably _good_ , in a way that makes her momentarily forget all about Sam, but this is—it’s a lot.

“Sorry, yes,” she says slowly, managing to tear her eyes away from him for long enough to grab an empty coffee cup from the bench. “Um, what's the new look for?”

Schmidt laughs at that, then leans over the counter conspiratorially.

“Good luck trying to get that out of him,” he says, his eyes glinting. “He won’t tell me. I think he might be seeing a girl or something because that’s Nick’s _date shirt_ , as hard as that is to believe. I mean, I don’t know which girls actually go for flannel, but, hey, it’s not my sex life.”

She blinks.

“Seeing…a girl?” She echoes, glancing briefly up at Nick, but Nick just shrugs at her, his expression unreadable, and oh _god_ , this is for her, right? It has to be? She doesn’t think that Nick’s the type of guy that goes around confessing his feelings to multiple girls in the space of a few days.

Nick tilts his head almost imperceptibly at her then as if to say _your move_ , but she’s not quite sure exactly what he wants her to do, remaining frozen in place, licking her lips slightly. She’s dimly aware that what she’s doing now could very much be considered as her checking him out, but she also can’t stop herself from staring shamelessly at him because he looks so different, but yet not, and everything’s so complicated and weird, and she just doesn’t know what to do about it.

Nick’s eyes soften when she meets his gaze again, offering her a gentle smile, his eyes warm, and for a second, he looks like the old Nick again, the one that was just her friend, and she forces herself to take a deep breath and swallow down the butterflies that are pooling in her stomach.

“Jess, coffee?” Nick reminds her, tilting his head again, this time at the empty coffee cup that she’s still clutching in her hands, and she jumps slightly, blushing furiously as she suddenly remembers where she is.

She turns her back to them, her hands moving on autopilot as she makes him his normal order, though she’s really just trying to regulate her breathing and figure out exactly when he started to have this much of an effect on her. She’s always been attracted to him, sure, but she’s also never had trouble looking him in the eye until today. Is this just because she now knows that he has feelings for her? Or is it that she—she also has those sorts of feelings for him? Or is she just reacting this way because he’s gone and put that idea in her head? She shakes her head hard, takes another forceful inhale of oxygen in, before slowly turning back around and sliding the cup of coffee over the counter. Nick reaches out to take it from her, but she doesn’t let go, and then they’re both just holding the cup, their fingers almost brushing against each other, and it should be _weird_ , but it’s—it’s not. Nick slowly raises an eyebrow, his forehead furrowing slightly in confusion, but she doesn’t let go, not yet.

“Hey, Nick, can you stick around for a bit? My break’s in about fifteen minutes and I want to talk to you about something,” she says quickly before she can change her mind.

Nick eyes her for a second, his expression unreadable again, but then he nods at her just once and she slowly releases her hold on the cup, watching him out of the corner of her eye as he sidles down the counter towards Winston, his hand already stretched out to sift through Furguson photos on Winston’s phone.

It’s just Nick, Jess.

Just _Nick_.

* * *

She’s feeling a whole lot more like herself by the time her break rolls around, enough that she steals a chocolate cupcake from the counter – with _extra_ frosting like she knows he likes – and makes her way over to his table, only stumbling over her feet once. She slides the cupcake over the table towards him almost like a peace-offering, but Nick just shoots her a weird look, slowly reaches for it, splits it in half and then slides half of it back. She smiles at that, a genuine smile, and for the first time since he walked into the coffee shop, she really feels like everything’s going to be alright. Yeah, sure, things might be weird between them for a while, but it’s not like she’s _actually_ kissed him or anything, and he knows that she’s dating Sam, so…

“How’s the writing for Pepperwood going?” She asks, nibbling on a piece of cupcake as she glances at his laptop, deciding that the best plan of action here is to latch on to a neutral topic that doesn’t involve _feelings_. She really does want to know too; they haven’t had a proper conversation since his birthday over two weeks ago, and she misses hearing about all his latest ideas about the universe in his head.

Nick blinks at her question, his eyes narrowing suspiciously at her, and slowly reaches out a hand to firmly close his laptop, and—okay, maybe she was wrong, and things _aren’t_ going to go back to normal just like that.

“Seriously? That’s what you wanted to talk to me about?”

She swallows, and then licks her lips, suddenly uncertain about how to proceed, that unsettling churning in her stomach returning in full force.

“I miss my friend,” she says quietly. “I miss talking to you.”

Nick eyes her for a second, a complicated mixture of hurt and guilt crossing his face, but then he just tilts his head slightly, nods once.

“Yeah, me too,” he admits.

It’s silent for a while, neither of them quite knowing what to say, and all she can do is focus on _breathing_ because she feels overwhelmingly anxious sitting here, and she’s never felt like this around Nick before. The silence draws on, and on, and _on_ , and Nick’s just staring at her with this look on his face that she doesn’t quite understand, and before she knows it, she’s suddenly put both hands face-down on the table, and words are spilling out of her mouth:

“Are you doing all of this for me? This, um, this new look?”

Nick doesn’t reply for a minute, though she knows he’s heard her because his mouth falls open ever so slightly, the faintest of blushes entering his cheeks. She holds her breath as she waits, watches as his features harden, his jaw set, and when he finally does reply, his voice is all calculating, as if he’s thought carefully about every single syllable.

“You thought I was doing this for you?”

She blinks, tilts her head. Isn’t he?

“Well, yeah, kinda.”

“How embarrassing for you,” he cuts in, before she really knows what’s happening, crossing his arms across his chest defensively. “No, this isn't for you.”

He wasn’t doing this for her? This is…for some other girl? Who? It hasn’t been that long since he’d confessed how he felt, has it? Unless his confession wasn’t real? …except, it certainly felt real. _Too real_.

“Nick, I don't understand what's happening here,” she replies slowly, chewing on her bottom lip as she glances up at him nervously. “I just thought that after the last time you were here, that maybe, um, well…you know.”

Nick shoots her an unreadable look and runs a hand through his hair, messing it up even more than it was already.

“Look, Jess, I liked ya for a while, okay? And—sure, maybe you've thought about it, but clearly not in the same way or you wouldn't be dating Sam,” he says, except he’s also kinda shuffling steadily closer to her as he says it so she’s not really listening anymore. “…so, I get it, and I’m gonna move on, and we don't need to talk about it again.”

“You're going to move on,” she echoes slowly, her brow slightly furrowed, and it's a thought that makes her feel undeniably nauseous, even though she knows that she realistically needs him to move on if they're ever going to be friends again.

“You’re dating Sam,” he reminds her, reaching out and placing a hand on her upper arm, his fingers loosely curling around her, the feel of his fingers against her skin making her feel dizzy all of a sudden, her heart pounding. “Right?”

“Right,” she answers, except then he’s leaning down again, just like he’d done the last time that he was here, close enough that she can’t stop staring at his mouth, her breathing coming out all shaky.

He doesn’t close the gap though, but instead, tilts his head slightly and moves past her mouth and to her ear, his breath warm against her as he speaks. She feels it all the way down to her toes, goosebumps rising on her skin.

“This isn’t for you, but I appreciate you checking me out earlier,” he whispers lowly, and she can almost feel the smugness in his words before she sees it, and she kinda wants to kiss him but also wipe that look off his face. It’s a combination that she’s never really dealt with before, and it’s not one that she ever thought she needed, but she can’t deny the fact that it’s making her feel things, you know, _down there_.

“I was not,” she immediately retorts, except it sounds weak even to her own ears, and oh god, she’s in real trouble, isn’t she?

“Sure, Jessica,” he says, then straightens up, winks, and pats her on the cheek, just like she’s been doing to him ever since the day they met.

Her phone buzzes loudly then, the sound breaking the tension between them, and Nick awkwardly clears his throat and backs away slightly. They glance at the phone screen at the same time, and she catches Nick visibly flinching as he reads the name on the screen, her chest immediately constricting at his expression. Even if he claims that he didn’t do this for her, he clearly feels _something_ for her, and she hates the fact that she might actually be hurting him by sitting at this table. She just—she just wants everything to be simple again.

“What do you see in him?”

“Nick, don’t do this,” she replies softly, because she’s not sure what to tell him.

“I’m not doing anything,” he says, though he’s avoiding her eyes now, looking straight ahead. “I’m just curious.”

She doesn’t reply, taking a bite of her half of the cupcake just to do _something_ , but Nick’s clearly still waiting for an answer, his brow furrowed, so she eventually manages to get a few words out.

“He’s…a nice guy. He’s funny, and sweet, and smart,” she says, and she weirdly feels like she has to explain herself to him, but she’s not really sure why. It’s not like she knew that Nick felt this way before she started dating Sam, and even if she did, it’s not like…it’s not like she really _owes_ him anything in that department.

“…and I’m not any of those things?”

“ _Nick_ , don’t.”

He turns to her then, but his expression isn’t what she was expecting at all. He’s got that cocky smirk on his face again, his eyes dark and intense as they meet her gaze, and it instantly puts her on edge all over again.

“You see, Jess, what I don’t get is: if he’s so perfect, why do you want me to kiss you?”

She blinks, her mouth falling open slightly, because of all the things she thought that he might say, it wasn’t _that_.

  
“What? No, I don’t.”

“Oh, come on, Jess,” he says, shaking her head slightly at her almost disapprovingly, sliding his chair over to hers again. “You want me to kiss you. Just admit it.”

“No, I don’t,” she repeats, leaning back slightly, trying her best not to take the bait like he so clearly wants her to.

He lets out a laugh then, a hollow, almost disbelieving laugh, and then suddenly he’s reaching out and he’s got one hand either side of her face, and she can’t think clearly anymore because his hands are framing her face entirely and they’re solid, and warm, and—okay _,_ so she very much _does_ want him to kiss her, despite everything, despite Sam, and apparently he knows it too.

“You’re seriously telling me that you don’t want me to kiss you right now?”

“I—”

“It’s a simple question, Jess,” he says lightly, and then leans in a few centimetres more, until she’s struggling to remember how to breathe again. “Do you want me to kiss you? Yes or no?”

He holds still then, his eyes fixed on hers, his gaze intense enough that she can’t look away, and what—what is happening right now?

“ _Yes!_ I mean, I—no! I don’t know! It’s…complicated, okay?”

Nick licks his lips then, and her eyes dart down out of instinct, captivated by the motion, but then he slowly leans forward and presses a kiss to her temple, all soft and gentle. It’s such a stark contrast from the Nick from five seconds ago that all she can do is continue staring at him, her eyes wide, her world all off-kilter.

“It doesn’t have to be,” he says, his lips quirked slightly as he lets go of her face, and then he shifts his seat back to his original position, casually opening up his laptop and going back to writing as if the moment never actually happened. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

…um, so, Jess? Pretty sure a platonic friendship’s out of the question.


	12. turtles and giraffes

She makes a list as soon as Nick finally leaves, right there in the middle of the coffee shop, because she’s always found the action of making lists comforting (plus, there was a sale on glitter pens, and she now has three – okay, five – brand new packs raring to go). It starts off as a list summing up the current status of her job hunt – teaching jobs she’s applied for, jobs she’s planning on submitting applications for, jobs she’s been rejected from – but before she knows it, she’s stopped being _responsible_ about her career path and she’s doodling turtles in the corner of the page with adorable frowning faces and— _oh god_. Damn Nick and his stupid smug face. She shakes her head hard as she realises what she’s doing and then, a bit more determinedly, draws a line down the middle, separating the turtles on the left with the blank space on the other side. In the spirit of complete fairness, she doodles a little herd of giraffes (hey, he’s _tall,_ okay?) with stethoscopes on the right and then she starts jotting down points on both sides.

Okay. Come on, Jess. You can figure this out. Lists have never failed you before.

She gets halfway down the page, carefully writing _bought me ice-cream once_ and _can be so annoying!!!_ and _…but also stupidly sweet sometimes_ on Nick’s side, when Aly walks up behind her, glancing down at what she’s doing.

“Do I need to call someone?”

“Call…someone?”

“You heard me,” she says, rolling her eyes a little, voice flat. “Do I need to call someone to save you from yourself?”

She sighs deeply, pushing her chair back, and Aly takes that as an invitation even though it really wasn’t, seating herself down beside her.

“What’s going on, Jess? …actually, don’t tell me, I already know everything. You aren’t exactly the most subtle person in this coffee shop—or, even, on this planet.”

She blinks, glancing upwards in surprise, her fingers loosely clutching the edge of her half-completed list.

“You should give him a chance, you know,” Aly says then, her voice softer now, gently reaching out and prying the list from her, skimming the points she’s carefully written down.

She doesn’t reply, just chews on her bottom lip. It’s not that she doesn’t want to, per se, it’s just _complicated…_ except, she’s been telling that to herself for long enough now that she’s not even sure what the word even means anymore.

“ _Jess_.”

“We’re _friends_. He’s too important to me,” she says slowly, fidgeting with her pens, repeating her rehearsed answer. “I can’t risk that.”

Aly leans back in her chair, hums to herself a little, and patiently waits until she lifts her head to meet her gaze again.

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you when he comes in here,” she tells her gently. “Pretty sure he doesn’t even like coffee that much.”

She stays silent, tilting her head a little.

“Jess, you were so miserable when you started working here. It wasn’t until he walked in that you started smiling again. I know you think that you want something easy and uncomplicated after Spencer, but he’s not Spencer.”

“Yeah,” she replies slowly. “He’s not.”

* * *

She’s distracted from thinking about, um, certain individuals in her life by a phone call she gets the next morning from the fancy private school ten blocks down asking if she can come in for an interview that morning. It’s not exactly her dream school, as such, because she’s never really agreed with the sort of pressurised teaching that takes place in those institutions, but at the same time, she’s been getting a little too comfortable working at the coffee shop and she figures she can’t be that picky: a teaching job is a teaching job, and she misses working with kids. (Plus, hey, maybe if she gets the job, she can infiltrate and make real change—or, at least, she can try?) The only problem is, she finds her car pretty much unusable after being attacked by a gang of feral cats at some point in the night (seriously, if she’d known her apartment didn’t come with a parking spot, she would have never agreed to live here) and there’s no way she’s going to be able to walk there in time, not even if she _powerwalks_ … She starts calling everyone she knows but to no avail: Cece’s in the middle of a modelling gig, and Winston and Aly can’t help her because they now need to cover her shift at the coffee shop. She chews on her bottom lip, scrolling down her contacts, skips down to the _S_ s, but then scrolls back up again because, well, he’s probably going to be in surgery or something stupidly heroic, right? Nick, on the other hand…

_I have a favour to ask you. – Jess xoxo_

_Okay. – N_

_You’re not going to ask what it is? – Jess xoxo_

_I’m busy. Call your boyfriend. – N_

_He's not my boyfriend. - Jess xoxo_

_Nick, please. – Jess xoxo_

_I need you._ _– Jess xoxo_

She somehow manages to convince Nick to pick her up from her apartment in his car without too much protesting, and she spends the next fifteen minutes running around trying to get dressed and eat breakfast, shovelling cereal into her mouth while also tugging a dress over her shoulders. It sort of works, and she’s almost passably presentable by the time Nick texts her to tell her that he's waiting outside. He’s leaning against his car, arms crossed, that annoyingly smug smile already creeping onto his face as he meets her gaze.

“Well, well, well,” he says. “Look who it is.”

“I asked you to come here, Miller,” she retorts.

She shakes her head slightly and does her best to completely ignore the way his lips quirk upwards just a tad more at her words, sidling past him and trying to get in, but the doors are locked.

“Nick, can we not do this today?”

He grins then, slowly uncrossing his arms and leaning across the top of his car, the sleeves of his flannel all rolled up, and—um, _Jess_? Why are you staring?

“Do what?” Nick asks, his voice pitched all innocent, though she’s pretty sure at this point that he knows exactly what he’s doing; she’s just not entirely sure what his endgame is.

“You’re making that face,” she tells him, because he is and it’s confusing and she can’t take this, not when she’s about to interview for a teaching job for the first time in weeks.

“What face?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she replies. “Stop—stop doing that with your face.”

“Stop doing that with my face,” he echoes, voice a little flat, one eyebrow raised, but he doesn’t, and she immediately regrets texting him—except for the fact that she does really want to go to this interview and he has a car, and she is secretly kinda grateful that he’s here, even if she would never admit it, not when he’s being so weirdly smug.

He unlocks the car then, and she allows herself to give him a small smile, sliding into the passenger side. She tells him the address and then leans back in her seat, pulling a stack of notecards out of her purse. The notecards are filled with things she already knows – her past work experience, her teaching philosophy, her teaching plans – but she’s always found it calming to read through them before she goes to interviews to help get her head into the game. Nick, thankfully, stays uncharacteristically silent whilst he drives, even when the car behind them poorly overtakes them, getting a bit too close to them for comfort. She glances up at him in surprise, expecting a steady stream of curses from his direction, but his lips remain shut and the only sign she can see of him being affected by it are his knuckles tightening ever so slightly on the steering wheel. It hits her then: he’s forcing himself to stay silent for _her_ so that he doesn’t distract her from reading through her cards, and she feels her chest expand. Nick’s a real mystery, all grumpy on the outside, but so _soft_ on the inside.

She refocuses on her notecards, quietly reading the words under her breath, trying her best to commit everything to memory even though everything already is. She’s never liked interviews: she has the tendency to overcompensate in her nerves and talk too much, and she’s been through a string of failed interviews since the whole Spencer fiasco (granted, some of those were because she was so fragile afterwards that she’d ended up just walking in and dissolving into tears, but—still.) Nick pulls up in front of the school, glancing at the building out of his window, before turning to her with one eyebrow raised.

“Looks fancy,” he remarks.

“Yeah,” she replies, staring straight ahead, but doesn’t get out.

There’s an actual _fountain_ at the entrance, and she’s pretty sure the walls of the building are made of marble, and all the students are dressed up all smartly in colour-coordinated blazers and—god, what is she doing? This isn’t her type of school at all, she’s going to do terrible at the interview like she has at the last ten she’s been to, and she’s never going to teach again. She’s going to end up working at the coffee shop for her entire life, which, okay, she doesn’t _hate_ , but her dream’s always been to become principal one day, ever since she was five.

“Are you, uh, going to go in?”

“I think this might be the wrong place.”

Nick stares at her, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

“Pretty sure this is the only school at this address,” he tells her.

“Are you? Did you double-check? Maybe we should go around the block just to be sure,” she says quickly, her left foot tapping on the floor uncontrollably, anxiety rising in her chest.

“What are you talking about? This is definitely the right place.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Nick sighs then and twists to face her properly, his eyes softening as he searches her face.

“Jess, hey, you’re going to be great,” he tells her quietly, a look of understanding crossing over his features.

“You don’t know that,” she replies, chewing on her bottom lip.

He gives her a slow shrug, leaning forward ever so slightly, ducking his head so that he’s eye-level with her.

“Yeah, I do,” he continues. “You’re gonna do great, okay?”

She gives him a sceptical look at that, but it makes her smile a bit all the same.

“Okay. I’m going to do it,” she says, then takes a deep breath to steady her nerves.

“Jess, you’re going to have to get out of the car,” he prompts after a few more seconds of silence, gently nudging at her shoulder with his. “I think that’s kinda the move here.”

“Yeah, okay,” she says, except she continues to remain seated, her fingers moving aimlessly over the notecards she’s clutching in her lap.

“Hey, Jessica, I believe in ya. They'd be clowns not to hire you,” he tells her then, and he sounds so sincere about it, his voice all warm and low, that it makes the butterflies in her stomach transform into something else entirely.

Things might have been a little weird between them lately and there’s still a whole bunch of _feelings_ that they need to sort out, but he’s still Nick, and she somehow knows that he’d do anything for her if she asked (enough times). Sam’s great and all, and they’ve had fun over the past two weeks or so, but he’s never going to understand her the way that Nick does, and—

Oh.

_Oh_.

She’s staring at him then, looking him straight in the eyes, and he offers her a gentle, lopsided smile and nods pointedly towards the school in the background. She holds his gaze for a few seconds more, her heart beginning to pound uncontrollably in her chest, and she’s not sure why she does it exactly, why now, but she suddenly pitches forward in her seat, her eyes determinedly dropping down to his mouth… except, he seems to realise what’s happening a second too late, letting out a yelp in surprise, and her mouth ends up landing somewhere between his lips and his jaw.

“—Did you just try to…”

“—Oh my god, um, just—just, um, just forget I did that,” she says in a rush, her face flaming, a wave of pure, unadulterated mortification flooding through her body. Did she really just do _that_? Jess, that might have been the most uncoordinated and least smooth thing you’ve ever done in your life…and with _Nick_ , no less.

Nick stares at her, eyes wider than she’s ever seen them, his mouth opening and closing a couple of times, clearly stunned, and she suddenly can’t look at him anymore. Isn’t this what he’s been trying to goad her into doing? Why did he turn his head? Unless all that stuff Schmidt was saying about him going on a date with a girl was true? A girl…that isn’t her?

She buries her hands into her face, lets out a groan, and wishes for a time when things were simpler and she hadn't just tried to kiss Nick fricking Miller right before she has to pull herself together and get through an interview. It’s silent for a while, though she can almost hear the cogs in his brain turning, struggling to process the events of the last five minutes.

“Hey, Jess?”

She slowly lowers her hands and eyes him warily, still feeling uncomfortably warm.

“Knew you wanted to kiss me,” he says, looking so unbelievably – and _infuriatingly_ – pleased at the turn of events, that she immediately looks away, feeling herself blush furiously all over again.

“Shut up, Miller.”

“Not a chance,” he teases, nudging her shoulder lightly. “Just, uh, give a guy some warning next time.”

"Who says there's going to be a next time?" She bites back, though her voice sounds oddly breathy and high-pitched to her own ears so she's not entirely sure it's that convincing.

He grins at her then, his lips twisted in that little secretive lopsided smile of his that makes her heart flip, and then gently leans over and opens the door for her. She squirms backwards in her seat, trying to put as much space between their bodies as physically possible, but it doesn’t quite work and his arm brushes her side and her cheeks heat up even more. She manages to slide out of the car mostly in one piece, adjusting her skirt as she stands and tucks her notecards neatly away in her purse, but then Nick’s suddenly standing beside her, a hand gently placed on her lower back.

  
“I meant what I said: you’re gonna do great,” he tells her, nudging her forward, and she glances up at him to see him smiling at her again, his eyes warm.

She nods at him once, almost shyly, and then pulls away from him, walking in with a determined stride.

* * *

The interview goes as well as it can: there’s a lot of talk about _rules_ and _assessments_ which she doesn’t particularly care for, but she manages to stay mostly quiet through it all (and that’s a win), her traitorous mind unable to stop thinking about the list she’d made yesterday about turtles and giraffes. She shakes their hands once it’s over and then ducks behind a row of lockers and calls Cece, even though she knows she’s in the middle of a shoot, praying she’ll pick up. Now that she’s got some distance away from Nick and she can think clearly again, she’s even more mortified that she’d just tried to _kiss him_ completely on the spur of the moment.

“Hey, Jess, how did the interview go?” Cece asks, her voice oddly distant, seemingly distracted by the commotion that she can hear in the background.

“You were right,” she says in a rush. “You were _right_.”

“You already said this the other day,” Cece informs her, letting out an exasperated sigh. “Are you going to tell me what I was right about this time?”

She chews on her bottom lip for a second, glancing out of the window where she can just about see Nick leaning against his car, idly scrolling through his phone, clearly waiting for her to finish even though she'd never explicitly asked him to.

“I, um, I think I just tried to kiss Nick.”

There’s a pause, and then the sound of shuffling, and then the line falls silent.

“You did…what?!” Cece asks, and she can almost see the eyebrow raise that’s probably on her face right now. “Wait, you _think_ you tried to kiss him? Or…you actually tried to? Or…you did kiss him?”

“Um, number two,” she replies, feeling her face heat up again as she remembers how off-target she’d been, and—why, Jess, _why_.

“Okay, well, did you want to kiss him? Like, more than Sam?”

“I mean, I tried to kiss him so…I guess, yes? No? I don’t know,” she says, her head spinning. “What do I do?”

Cece hums under her breath for a few seconds, and then lets out a soft laugh.

“Jess, it’s really not that hard. You might have gone on a few dates with Sam, but you’ve been dating Nick for _months_.

“What?”

“You heard me. He’s basically your boyfriend already, just without, you know, the rewards. Did you even call Sam to ask him to drive you to your interview?”

She bites her lip, silently shaking head, because she guesses Cece’s right. She’d assumed that Sam was probably busy, but she didn’t exactly give him the chance either.

“Jess, just kiss him already. You’ll thank me later.” Cece says, rolling her eyes slightly. “Right, babe, I need to get back on set, but I expect to be filled in on all the sordid details later.”

“There aren’t going to be any _sordid details_ ,” she replies.

Cece doesn’t say anything further, just laughs again, and then hangs up the phone. She stares at it for a second, and then she makes her mind up, scrolls down to the Ss and types out a quick text, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. It's now or never, right?


	13. nerves and punches

_Sam, will you be free later? I need to talk to you about something. – Jess xoxo_

* * *

Nick’s still standing outside when she emerges from the building, though now he seems to be entertaining himself with throwing and catching pebbles, instead of scrolling through his phone. She pauses at the entrance for a second, just watching him in amusement, before he happens to glance up just as he throws the pebbles up again, catches her eye, loses focus, and then stumbles forward to try and catch them. She grins, biting the inside of her cheek a little as she walks towards him, his embarrassment clear on his face. She hasn’t quite decided what she’s going to say to Sam yet, but she’s also increasingly sure that she might, maybe, like Nick back.

“You okay there, Miller?

“Yeah,” he says, clearing his throat awkwardly, running a hand through his hair and making it stick up in opposing directions. He drops the one pebble he’d actually managed to catch and sits himself down on the hood of his car, staring up at her, his eyes growing softer as he meets her gaze.

“How was the interview?”

She shrugs, scuffling her feet on the floor a little nervously. “It was okay, I guess,” she tells him slowly, replaying the events of the past hour in her head. “I don’t know. I never really saw myself working in a place like this, but—I really miss teaching, you know?”

“I actually…don’t know,” he replies. She squints at him for a moment through her glasses, but then he starts speaking again, his voice more serious than it has been all day. “I’ve never really had a plan like that. Never really knew what I wanted to do, so I think it’s really cool that you do.”

She smiles down at him, her hands itching to move forward to pat him on the cheek as she’s always done, but she stops herself at the last second, a wave of hesitation crossing through her. She needs to talk to Sam before she can pursue…whatever this is, _if_ that’s even what she really wants to do. If Nick notices her hesitation, he doesn’t comment on it, just shoots her a small smile, though the edges are tinged with self-doubt.

“Hey, you have a plan,” she tells him firmly, pushing down the thoughts in her head for a second and looking him straight in the eye. “You’re a writer, Nick.”

Nick smiles a bit wider at that, his posture straightening at his words, slowly rising to his feet again and opening the car door.

“Yeah, I guess I am,” he says, though the words are laced with a hint of surprise as if it’s the first time he’s ever said those words aloud before, before tilting his head towards his car. “And…you definitely got the job, so we’re going to celebrate. Get in.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No, I do,” he replies, nodding at her, a little too quickly and a little too many times that it’s almost comical. He really does look like he believes it though, believes in _her_ , and her heart expands in her chest again. “Get in.”

“Where... um, where are we going?” She asks, though she slowly walks around the car and slides into the passenger seat anyway, knowing deep-down that wherever he wants to go will probably be fine with her.

“You’ll see,” he says, before pausing and faltering slightly, half of his body still out of his car. “Wait, you didn’t have somewhere else to be right now, did you? I don’t want to keep ya or anything.”

Jess shakes her head, glancing at her watch briefly to check the time, even though she already knows that she still has a while before she has to head down to the coffee shop.

“Nope. Aly and Winston are covering for me so I’m all yours for another hour,” she tells him, and then immediately starts back-tracking as she hears her own words, but it’s too late, her cheeks burning up all over again. Jess, what are you saying?

“…All mine?” Nick echoes, almost faintly, and she forces herself to stare directly into her lap, trying to get her body to stop betraying her.

“That’s, um, not what I meant and you know it,” she tells him, except she’s half-mumbling now, another wave of mortification flooding over her. She needs to get it together before she embarrasses herself any further over _Nick Miller_ , of all people.

Nick just chuckles in response, but thankfully doesn’t push it any harder, twisting around to look through the rear window and pulling his car out of the parking spot.

“Where are we going?” She asks again, staring out of the window curiously.

“I told ya already. You’ll see.”

She pauses.

“Nick, are you kidnapping me?”

“What? No!” Nick immediately exclaims, glancing over at her in surprise before making a right turn. “Why would I _kidnap_ you?”

She shrugs, keeping her voice light and detached, trying her best to regain some control over her interactions with Nick today.

“Oh, I don’t know, Nick,” she says, “You told me to get into your car and you won’t tell me where we’re going. Kind of seems like kidnapping to me.”

She bites the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing as she sees Nick react out of the corner of her eyes, his mouth curving downwards into the frown that she’s grown to know so well.

“I’m not kidnapping you,” Nick insists, and then lets out a noise that’s a huff and a sigh and a groan all in one. “If you must know, I thought we could go to that ice-cream place again. You know, to celebrate and all.”

She pauses again, this time turning to face him properly.

“You want to have ice-cream at 10 AM?”

“Why not? There’s no rule to when you can and can’t have ice-cream, Jessica,” he fires back almost immediately, his voice borderline defensive. “Wait, is there? If there is, then I’m not aware of it.”

“No,” she replies, with a shake of her head, a smile creeping onto her face. “I guess you’re right.”

“Well, I’m always right so that’s not surprising, Day.”

“You’re not always right,” she tells him, laughing wholeheartedly now.

“Really?” He asks, and she immediately turns away, her laughter dying in her throat as he glances over at her again, the corners of his mouth slanting upwards slightly and forming a smirk, his eyes growing a shade darker. “Because I seem to be right about a lot of things lately. I mean, if I remember correctly..."

“Don’t start,” she warns, pointedly staring out the window, feeling her cheeks flushing again as her mind replays that stupid kiss that she’d tried – and spectacularly failed – to plant on him earlier out of nowhere. Again, why had she done that? Why had she thought that was good idea? “What happened before, I, um, I didn’t mean to do that. That was just—I was nervous about the interview, okay? Can we not—can we not mention it again?”

“Right. It was all _nerves_ ,” he says, drawing the word out, though his voice is teasing, and she wishes he wasn’t driving because she kind of wants to punch him in the arm right about now.

It’s silent between them for a while, just the quiet sound of _Cotton Eyed Joe_ playing in the background, before Nick mumbles something under his breath, so quiet that she almost misses it.

“I mean, whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“— _Nick_.”

“Okay, okay,” he relents, though she knows that he’s silently laughing from the tone of his voice. “I won’t mention it again, I swear.”

Jess glances over at him, watching him mime zipping his lips with one hand, and shoots him a grateful look, feeling herself relax again. She thinks back to what Cece had said on the phone about how she’d been dating Nick for months already, which she’d sort of denied on the phone, but… the more she thinks about it, what they’re doing now and what they’ve been doing for the past few weeks is very close to flirting, isn’t it? All these back-and-forth squabbles that they’ve been having? She’s really…gotten herself into quite a mess, hasn’t she? Way to go, Jess.

“…but, you know, like I said, if you had just given me some warning—”

“ _Miller_.”

* * *

It’s mostly silent the rest of the way to the ice-cream place, her mind too pre-occupied with replaying every single conversation and interaction they’ve ever had in her head and reanalysing them in this new context to make conversation. She’s dimly aware that she’s probably being rude, considering that he’d dropped everything to come and help her today, but she can’t stop thinking about how Cece might be right, and she’s been in this weird friends-but-also-not-friends space with Nick for a while and not fully realising it. Nick tries to pay for the ice-creams again, but she immediately intercepts, fishing out some change in her purse before he has time to dig through his plastic bag (which, um, is it weird that she finds it _endearing_ rather than worrying?)

“So…” she starts, when they find an empty booth and sit down, both of them with their matching triple chocolate ice-creams (with extra sprinkles) in front of them. She’s suddenly nervous again, the silence between them drawing out and her mouth slowly getting dry, despite the ice-cream.

“So…” he echoes.

“How, um, how’s the writing going? I know I asked you that the other day, but you didn’t give me an answer and I really do want to know,” she says all in one rush as he raises his head and quirks an eyebrow at her expectantly.

He smiles, taking another bite of his ice-cream before answering, and she forces herself to stare down at the table as she catches herself following his movements, her face feeling traitorously hot again.

“I’ve actually almost finished it,” he says, leaning back in his seat, a hint of pride in his voice.

She blinks in surprise, glancing up at him again.

“What? You have?” She exclaims, and almost reaches over to punch him in the arm for not telling her sooner. “Do I get to read it?”

Nick eyes her over his spoon, a string of different emotions that she can’t quite identify passing through his face, then shakes his head.

“Nope.”

“What? Why?” She asks, frowning slightly. She hadn’t been sure what to think of Nick and his writing abilities after she first realised that he was the author of the infamous _Z is for Zombies_ , but the little snippets that he’s shared with her about _The Pepperwood Chronicles_ have made her completely change her mind on him. Everything she’s read so far has been so descriptive and well-thought out, and she honestly wants nothing more than to read the entire thing—and then, get everyone around her to read it too.

“I just… I’m still trying to figure out the ending,” Nick says slowly.

“What does that mean?”

Nick shrugs at her, his expression giving nothing away.

  
“You’ll see,” he tells her cryptically, and then reaches forward and swipes a spoonful of ice-cream from her cup just like he’d done the last time that they were here, and then they’re close to having a full-on food fight right in the middle of the store and she’s distracted enough that she lets it slide. 

Nick drops her off at the coffee shop once they’ve finished their ice-creams, despite the fact that she’s pretty sure that at some point he’d gotten ice-cream in her hair because her bangs feel mildly sticky. She can’t really find it in herself to care though, because Nick’s telling her about the latest theory he’s read about the moon landing, his words coming out fast and with fervour as if he honestly believes the nonsensical things he’s saying, and she’s got her lips pursed as she tries her best not to burst out laughing.

“Hey, Miller,” she says, as she slides out of his car and he does the same, walking around until they’re both on the same side. “I just wanted to, um, say thanks for today. You really helped me out.”

“Anytime, Day,” he replies, shooting her a soft smile, before tilting his head towards the coffee shop.

She nods at him and reaches out to gently squeeze his arm gratefully, and then turns around to head in—except, then she feels his fingers suddenly twirl around her wrists, tugging hard, just once, sharply enough that she spins back around. He’s still looking at her like he was before, a soft smile gracing his face, but there’s now a determined glint in his eyes and before she really registers what’s happening, he’s bending down and pressing his mouth firmly against hers, his arms looping around her waist. She freezes for a split-second, her mind struggling to catch up, but then, all of a sudden, she feels herself leaning into it, into _him_ , rising up on her tiptoes to meet him halfway, her hands reaching around his neck and her fingers sliding into his hair. Her eyes flutter shut out of reflex, and it’s almost like she can see through space and time as he continues kissing her, his mouth moving firmly yet softly against hers, and she can taste the hint of chocolate ice-cream still lingering on his lips mixed with something sharper, and—

Her eyes fly open in surprise as she hears Nick yelp, quickly letting go of her as he’s yanked backwards by Sam, who she didn’t even realise was anywhere near the vicinity, and before she knows it, Nick’s being punched in the throat and he’s stumbling backwards against the side of his car.

“Oh my god, Nick! Are you okay?” She exclaims, immediately hurrying over to him, before glancing back at Sam and feeling a knot of guilt suddenly twisting in her stomach. “Sam! What—why did you do that?”

“I’m sorry, Nick. It’s the training,” he mutters, though she’s not entirely sure what he means by that, and then meets her gaze, giving her a helpless shrug. “Jess, he _deserved_ it. He knew exactly what he was doing. He looked me straight in the eye before he kissed you. He was trying to provoke me, Jess.”

She blinks, whipping around to stare at Nick. He’s still flailing around, his hands reaching up and rubbing at his throat, but there’s a slight sheepish look that crosses his face for a second and she immediately knows that what Sam said was true. She takes a deep breath, glancing between them both, desperately wishing she could take a time-out from this situation and talk to Cece because she has absolutely no idea how to handle it.

“I’m disappointed in both of you,” she tells them eventually, her hands clenching into fists, squeezing her eyes shut for a second before glancing over at Nick and adding: “…but _especially_ you.”

“What? Why are you more disappointed with me?” Nick asks hoarsely, his hands still clutching his throat, shooting her a wounded look. “I’m the one that got punched in the throat, _Jessica_.”

“Yeah, well, you knew that I—”

She trails off, hearing herself and not really knowing how she wanted to finish that sentence, scuffing the ground nervously.

“Knew that you…what?” Nick prompts, slowly lowering his hands and staring at her, his eyes glinting in a way that makes her completely unsympathetic to his current predicament.

“Yeah, Jess. What are you talking about?” Sam adds, and—oh god, this is going from very bad to _horribly_ bad.

“Nothing,” she says after a second, but she feels herself flushing anyway, all the emotions from the past ten minutes swirling around in her and making her experience a whole spectrum of different feelings.

There’s a beat then, and she sees Nick slowly straighten up, eyeing her defiantly as he rubs his neck with one hand.

“Jessica,” he starts, and she squeezes her eyes shut again because she already has a good idea about what he’s going to say and she knows she’s not going to like it. “You tried to kiss me earlier. Don’t act like this is all on me.”

“Wait, Jess, you tried to kiss him? _Him_?”

She tilts her head noncommittedly, keeping her eyes closed, shifting on the spot uncomfortably. She’s not really sure how her morning had gone from pleading with Nick to drive her to an interview to… _this,_ and—god, this is the worst time to be doing this, but why can’t she stop thinking about Nick’s mouth on her mouth?

“Okay, you two obviously have some issues that you need to sort out, so I think it’s best if I just go,” Sam says then, his words coming out uncharacteristically awkwardly. “And…Nick, ice it, 24 hours. Keep it elevated.”

* * *

(Okay, he'll admit it: maybe he shouldn’t have purposefully kissed her like that when he knew that Wedding Guy was behind her, but he just couldn’t help himself. Jess had tried to kiss him earlier, which had done wonders to further reinforce his theory that she _does_ like him despite all the denials that she's been spouting, but like a complete idiot, he'd jumped in surprise when he'd realised what was happening and she'd caught his jaw instead. He'd tried not to make a big deal about it because she was clearly embarrassed, and they'd started to fall back into their usual teasing of one another, but when he’d seen Wedding Guy at the coffee shop, presumably waiting for her, he’d gotten confused all over again and, well, he just—he snapped, and he couldn’t hold back anymore; he couldn’t continue playing this weird waiting game and watching her go on dates with another guy. Sure, maybe his throat hurts like a bitch now (who punches someone in the throat?! Out of all the places he could have gone for, why go for the throat?) and Jess isn’t exactly pleased with him, but...at the same time, she’d kissed him back for a glorious minute, her hands all tangled up in his hair, tugging in just the right places and with just the right pressure, and it’d felt like he'd been transported into a goddamn fairy-tale for a moment.

So, yeah, all in all? Not a bad day. He regrets nothing.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! i am back!!
> 
> sorry for the delay on this, i got super side-tracked and started two other nick/jess AUs. i have a real problem. (but if you want more slow burn goodness, find me over there!)  
> 
> 
> let me know your thoughts if you're still here! (yes, it is kinda nerve wracking to finally put in the kiss after making you read 40k words of this)


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